It’s been hours since the series finale of “Lost,” and fans are still trying to figure it all out.

On Twitter, #Lostfinale has been a persistent trending topic as users alternately hail the series end as the best.thing.ever, express their (sometimes extreme) disappointment or just tweet their confusion.

It's gotten to the point that other users are using the hashtag just to get their tweets seen by the hundreds still talking about it. Yet like with any series finale, one can never expect reactions to fall overwhelmingly in one category. Inevitably, some walk away satisfied, while others are left frustrated with unanswered questions, and still others are dealing with feelings of sadness, unable to “let go” of their favorite show.

But on to the reactions – we’ve grabbed some snippets from Twitter, CNN iReports and the comments left on Henry Hanks’ recaps in order to get a sense of what the final verdict on the finale is. Was it more awesome than it was disappointing? Read on.

Team ‘Mysteries rule’ vs. Team ‘The writers were lazy’

Many fans tuned in to the last two-and-a-half hours of the series knowing full well that every single question could never be answered, and while some have taken this in stride, others believe the writers took the easy way out.

“I was very disappointed that it explained nothing of Jacob, MIB, all the island secrets, the flash forwards and sideways, or anything else,” said iReporter Tony Kevin Patton in a review. “I was very disappointed in the ending, and felt the writers could have done so much more. Even if they had taken some of the blogs and posts I've read over the last couple of weeks...I felt some of those would have been a much better wrap-up to a great series.”

Commenter Glenn, a “dedicated fan since episode 1,” thinks “the writers didn't know how to end it… Just to[o] many holes and I'm not ta[l]king about the unanswered questions. For example, if this was everyone who died on the plane and had to ‘settle’ things on a spiritual level before they could ‘move on’ why was Desmond there? Better yet, why was Penny there? What did I miss?”

But these persistent questions are part of the beauty of the show for iReporter Jason Gaston. The best thing the finale did, Gaston said in his review, is keep some things unanswered. "One of the best things about the show, [is] its mysteries and its stories and its characters. You could debate them and interpret what was going on, and you could do this until you were blue in the face.”

Like the "Were they alive or dead?" quandary.

While some believe it’s obvious that everything that happened on the island was real, others are convinced that they called the ending a long time ago - the characters had been dead the whole time, as recap commenter KisaSkee points out. “Maybe it was entertaining, but I'm disappointed. People guessed the first season that this was purgatory, that the islanders had died etc. Producers specifically stated that they were not dead, and this was not purgatory. Why??? They could have stayed silent about it then and kept us waiting. Instead they mislead everyone and lied. If I wanted to be lied to for 6 years, I could have gotten married again."

However, finale commenter Mike would encourage that viewer to go back and watch the finale again. “Great ending to a great show…It seems most of you people didn't even ‘get it.’ THEY DID NOT DIE FROM THE CRASH. The events on the island after the crash all happened. It was the sideways world that was some kind of limbo. Jack's dad explains the whole thing at the end. Funny how some of you are posting on here complaining of a predictable end when it doesn't seem like you even know what happened.”

But there are still others who, regardless of being disappointed, are left with the same emotions as Twitter user SwordofSparda: "A mix of emptiness, sadness, and all around feeling of loneliness.” Twitter user Klaye asks, “Will any show ever be as cool as ‘Lost’ was? Now it’s major network television’s turn to be stuck in limbo.”

So for those who are still disgusted/angered/saddened that the finale didn’t live up to expectations, maybe this commenter’s observation will bring just a bit of relief once you realize how it could’ve ended.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” commenter Dawn wrote Monday afternoon, “[and] that Jack didn't end up in a shower scene saying it was all a dream.”

Check out more reactions from iReporters and join the conversation here.

soundoff(623 Responses)

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For those of you who say that Jack created all of the story in his mind I think you're wrong.Some people say that the place Jack died at the end of the finale is the same place where he found himself when he opened his eyes in the first episode but if this is so then how can you explain the clothes he wear are not the same in those two episodes?When he first opened his eyes in the first epi. he was wearing a suit but in the finales dying scene he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans.All I want to say is what happened in the island is happened.They all lived there and shared their very special moments together.That's why they met eachother in sideways and walked through the light in peace and love.

I found the ending poetic, and compelling. Great cinematograohy and some questions left, sequel?
Must say I was most entertained by the Jimmy Kimmel "possible endings" with cast and writers. Sometimes I think TV shows are just a back story for his jokes.

for those of you who are confused why michael and walt were not there there is a very simple explanation. when walt started the series he was 10 ok so now 6 seasons have passed – six years in filming so walt will now be 16 in real life as time has passed he has hit puberty, they explained it away in season 4 or was it 5? by saying 3 years had passed so he would have aged

but it would be physically impossible for him to be at the church simply because he should be 10 again at the church as 10 year old walt is when he met everyone. however as the writers and directors did not film the last episode 6 years ago he cannot be there because it is impossible to make him that ten year old walt again. so if walt cannot be there why would they put michael in as well because walt would only be there if michael was and vice versa.

Sadly, everyone who loves the ending thinks that people who didn't are either stupid (didn't get it) or uncultured (don't get big ideas).

Unfortunately these people are quite mistaken. The people who the finale lovers claim to be stupid didn't get it because it doesn't make sense. It is a convoluted mix of sci-fi and spirituality which has some great elements that don't fit together. It is like a jigsaw puzzle in which each piece may have a beautiful picture on it (individual concepts introduced in the show) but these pieces don't fit together to form a whole completed picture. The people who are filnale lovers and think anyone who didn't like it is uncultured, are the same people who look down on you if you didn't get that "The Wizard of OZ" was an allegory about the industrial revolution in late 1800s America (it isn't by the way, this was an idea created by someone who did not know Baum). If it makes you happy to interpret something in a certain way, great, enjoy it if it makes you happy and you feel like you had some revelation, but don't scoff at people who don't have the same interpretation, because a lot of art is not designed to be interpreted in any specific way and the art that is is often misinterpreted by critics and the 'real' meaning as intended by the artist may be completely different (e.g. Wizard of Oz).

I think the real question for people who were dissapointed in the ending, is why are there not many writers out there who can actually come up with a fully fleshed out idea that is mind blowing and actually paying it off in the end. Not to say that I would be able to do this, but I am not paid to do just that for a living. It seems that a few people can do this in movies (Memento, Eternal Sunshine, Prestige, etc.) but why is it that every TV show that sets up 'big concept' shows with large mysteries that purport to blow your mind never follow through. I'm talking about X-Files, Battlestar, Twin Peaks, and of course Lost.

With as many cool ideas that they introduced they sure crapped out with a Deus Ex Machina ending. Sure it was a little different than people expected, but lame none the less.

If the alternate universe is basically limbo/purgatory why does it need to be created/activated by an atomic bomb. If you are going to use some spiritual mumbo jumbo, why does it need to have anything to do with the the real world.

Remember when we were first introduced to the machine that the numbers have to be input into? That was going to be really cool. Turns out they are the numbers of the candidates on the lighthouse, also kind of cool. They may also have something to do with an equation about the end of the world, kind of cool. But then none of it really ties together. These numbers didn't have to be punched into a machine in the early days of Jacob. And if these numbers were so important then what was the point of all the other hundreds of candidates on the cave wall/lighthouse? If we know 4 8 15 ... are the important ones why even bother bringing anyone else to the island. Sure I can make up some reasons, but then that is just interpretation.

Writing cool ideas that don't have to be payed off in the end is easy. Sure it is fun to talk about the things that are still mysterious and make up our own interpretations, but on behalf of all the people who say they didn't like the ending, I think what we were looking for was what we thought we were being promised all along which would not given a reaction like "I thought is was nice", or "That was a satisfying way to finish", but something more along the lines of "Holy f-ing crap! Oh my god! That was awesome! Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!" followed by a heart attack or peeing of the pants or vomiting because it was so good.

About the atom bomb creating limbo, it didn't. The atom bomb just set off the energy that sent all the characters back to present time on the island and then they kept living until they died off one by one. And when they died they went into Limbo and helped create a reality in Limbo that would help them find eachother and remember their mortal life so they can move on.

"If you are going to use some spiritual mumbo jumbo, why does it need to have anything to do with the the real world." Because what the characters do in the real world brought them redemption and peace in the afterlife.

Were you looking for some scientific explanation to end the show? How could you possibly explain everything on the island scientifically beyond what they already dove into with electromagnetism and time travel.

If the happy crowd thinks the show was about just the characters, then there was no need for a mystery island..

Ghost whisperer does that evey week..It wont take six years on Ghost whisperer six years for one lost soul to be not "earth bound" or let go and move on to the light..AND IT HAS LOTS OF TEARS,HUGS on that show..

G., If you want this to be science fiction (sans afterlife theme) then just toss out the flash-sideways and here you go – One possible SCI-FI scenario:

In a flash back (pre-Egyptian time) we see some asteroid or meteor hit this island. The rock is from another galaxy and has very strange properties. We observe all hell breaking loose on the island –earthquakes, volcanic activity, time shifting, etc. The island reaches an equilibrium and things settle down (fortunately, some sort of shell has formed around the “Insolitus” stone). At some point some ancient people find their way to this island. They discover what MIB discovered – that metal behaves strangely. They find the phenomena strongest in a cave. They damn off a pool and dig. When they break through – disaster: some are burnt, some vanish (thrown through time), some have their non-physical essence ripped from their bodies, earthquakes begin. They plug the hole up with a large rock – the rock begins to glow. Things slowly settle down. They assume this is some portal to the other world and build temples and appoint priests to guard it. The smokey’s wind up killing everyone except for a few that are immune – they find out that the immunity to smokies, as well as other mysterious abilities (including long life) come from drinking water that has just passed through the pool (reverse kryptonite effect). They have identified some Desmond types, who are preferred for priesthood because they are the only ones that can get close to the stone without getting burnt or disembodied; they find out lifting the stone neutralizes any smokies. Smokies find out that they can’t get too far from the “lsource” or they begin to die. Over time only a few and then only one guardian is left. Etc, etc, etc.

At the end Hurley is the new Jacob, Ben is his number 2. Bernard and Rose are still on the island. Kate, Sawyer, Richard, and Lapedis left on the jet – and could return in the future.

The ending confirmed my worst fear... THAT THE WRITERS HAD NO CLUE WHERE THE SHOW WAS GOING!!! The "Flash Sideways was limbo/purgatory? COMPLETE COP-OUT!!!! ALL I was hoping for was an ending that wasn't a cop-out...

Why do some people enjoy criticizing a show that so many people are obviously so passionate about? It amazes me that some people love to be mean. If you didn't like the show and stopped watching after the first or second season then why take the time to read and make comments on the posts made by people who actually watched every episode?

The Nuclear blast killed everyone on the island, and set in motion 'sideways world'. Sideways world started with the explosion, and put the characters back on the plane that landed safly in Los Angeles. Desmond, who was not on the original flight, was put there to 'shepard' them all togethe because Jacks awakening was about to happen.

Time spent on the island after the explosion was the characters redemption period. Hurley finally gained confidence to lead, Sawyer chose true love, Kate had to save Claire, Sayad needed to feel nothing so he could wipe out memory of Nadia and make room for Shannon, Richard needed to become mortal, Ben needed to repent for everything, including Alex, Locke was dead, and Jack needed to save him, Claire needed to get over her anger and guilt, Desmond was their Gardian Angel.

So to recap. Nuclear Bomb killed all inhabitance. Season 6 was redemption on the Island, Sideways world in LA was the bringing together of their souls for Jack's awakening and 'passing ' to the other side. Penny and Desmond weren't on the island when it exploded and were the ones that died 'much later'.

If the explosion killed everyone on the island, how can they redeem after being dead..

U never said after the explosion, the souls started redeeming and they never implied on the show that explosion killed everyone..bcz only Julet is dead and Sawyer buries her blaming Jack..so no they were not dead after explosion..

Why couldn't they have all survived and gotten off the island in the end? It could have been a great science fiction thriller where Jack & company solve the problem and escape. Having them all be dead just ruined it for me.

Hey, I stopped watching Lost after the second season because of my frustration with all the twists and turns. Now some like that and that's fine, just not my cup of tea. I remember when Mr. Cuse was part of Brisco County, Jr. and how disappointed I was that they dropped the ball with regards to the storyline, meaning: he ran out of gas. Too bad, because the show was very entertaining and different, and very good actors. I don't mind getting into a good story, but I want some answers by the end or beginning of the of the following season. I can follow good characters and storyline on a good show and really look forward to it and continue watching. I just don't want to be disappointed/frustrated and there are a lot of disappointed people out there. Hey, but the producers and writers are all laughing on their way to the bank. They Gotcha!

Very well stated DonP. I especially like the reference to Shakespeare’s, Hamlet. T

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM
Hamlet tries to take comfort in the idea that death is really "no more" than a kind of sleep, with the advantage of one's never having to get up in the morning. This is a "consummation"—a completion or perfection—"devoutly to be wish'd," or piously prayed for. What disturbs Hamlet, however, is that if death is a kind of sleep, then it might entail its own dreams, which would become a new life—these dreams are the hereafter, and the hereafter is a frightening unknown.

The writers of Lost leave the viewers to a very “hopeful” position on death and the hereafter, by reaching across all religions with the possibility that we all end up at the same place regardless of circumstances or personal beliefs.

It is interesting to note that the science fiction camp considers this ending overtly religious. Whereas, many good people of various religious faiths considers the universality of this all inclusive spiritual ending science fiction.

They say right before you die, your life flashes before you. In the end, all you have are memories. The island gave
all of them the ability to change what they saw right before they truly died. I think the writers may have created
some things they could not wrap up, but for the most part, it was a pretty good ending.

Pj, I think you’ve got it exactly right (posted May 25, 2010 at 3:41 pm). We saw the world through Jack’s frame of reference and when that eye closed, so did our access to that world (much like I believe happened at the end of Sopranos).

As for the theory that they were all dead the whole time, I think that’s completely wrong. Jack died at that point in which we saw his eye close, not in the crash. Jack’s father explains the whole thing very clearly. He assured Jack that “everything” actually happened on the island just as he remembered it. The purgatory part, the point at which the characters worked out their memories after they died in order to allow them to “let go” were represented this season, and this season only, as the flash sideways. That’s why there were subtle differences in details among the flashes; they represented that individual’s purgatory. But how could they all be together in the church at the end at the same time? Well, Jack’s dad explains that too. He said there “is no now” here. Take the notion of time out of the equation. He tells Jack that some people there died before him, some died after him. Kate, one would assume, lived many years after Jack saw the plane fly overhead. If you imagine that “purgatory” transcends time, then it makes complete sense that Kate’s soul could be with Jack’s at the moment of his death even if she died 50 years later. Time is relative and has no meaning there.

Loved the show for the entire 6 seasons, still processing the finale... here is a question for those who claim to understand the show and say that the entire experience on the island was "real." What exactly was "real" about time travel, space travel (Ben/Locke landing in the desert), smoke monster, certain characters never aging (or never losing weight), ghosts appearing/talking to you, and surviving a nuclear bomb blast? As some of the other bloggers I think the island was the "limbo" and the flash sideways was the meeting place where these characters met after their redemption. Why couldn't the island have been their "reality" after they died in the initial crash? I thought the writing was brilliant, even though some questions were not answered and avenues of the plot lines were abandoned (as admitted by the authors). But I still think the authors could have created a more interesting conclusion to an epic series.

Wow. For people who are hating this ending they obviously don't get the point of the show and aren't putting any thought into actually thinking about what the end means, if they did they would they realize how perfect it is.
First of all: Everything that happened on the island did happen! In real life! before they all died. The island wasn't purgatory it never was. The only Limbo that existed in the show was the alternate reality the cast created in season 6. So when the writers said that "the island" isn't limbo they weren't lying. When characters died on the island they actually died and went into that alternate universe limbo place.
Second: This show has always been more about the characters than the island's mysteries. At first you want to know what the island is exactly but then by the end you realize that it isn't important what it is. It's the characters you care about and if they don't know exactly what the island is then why should we. The audience has always seen the show through the character's point of view so we know what they know. It's better that way. Honestly by season 6 I stopped caring exactly where the island came from and why it was there because it didn't matter, it's mystery was it's charm, what mattered is how this mysterious place changed the characters into better people and helped them get their redemption and peace.
Third: By the end all the characters needed to remember their earth life and the people from the island and their relationships to move on and why was desmond their? because in this limbo time doesn't exist "there is no now here" said Christian Shepard. Which means that the last scene took place after everyone on the show had eventually died. Eventually after decades of Hurley and Ben taking care of the island they died. Eventually after Bernard and Rose lived a good life on the island probably died of old age and the plane kate,richard, lapedis, and Sawyer were on crashed in the final image so they died, supposedly. Hurley obviously helped Desmond get back the mainland because he was in charge and found a way to make his own rules and not keep people on the island, So desmond and Penny got to live out their lives before they eventually died.
In Conclusion: If you think about it enough you'll realize how perfect the ending is and how important it is for the characters and you'll learn a great lesson. So please don't run off attacking the writers for not knowing how to end the show. How else could you possibly end it. I mean seriously. I hope anyone reading this can at least try to make sense of the ending before shutting it down. Because once you've realized it's meaning like I have you will be satisfied. It took me a few days too.

You're absolutely right! I eventually came to the same conclusion (after giving it some thoughts). It all makes perfect sense and I don't see what other alternative there is. It's way better than "it was all Jack's dream" or "the writers lied; the island was a purgatory"... I think it was a perfect ending to a perfect show and I'll surely miss it.

Apparently, the writers never intended to explain most of the circumstances; they intended for Lost to be mostly dramatic, using circumstances only as a vehicle for the in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Obviously, the more abnormal the circumstances surrounding your characters the quicker, and possibly greater, their reaction and development – which, by the way, could be a devolvement, think of Lord of the Flies. Thus, the choice of this mysterious island with inexplicable properties, supernatural phenomena, and strange inhabitants. The problem is, the more bizarre the fictional place, the more difficult it is to explain. They obviously choose, for reasons just mentioned, a more bizarre but unfortunately inexplicable place. I’m O.K. with that. At first I was frustrated, but after further consideration I find this to be an acceptable literary approach. As the Rolling Stones sang, “you can’t always get what you what, but if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need”

As for the flash sideways storyline the same holds true – probably even more so, because, in this “timeless” timeline they were now dealing with the hereafter, the great beyond. We obiously have to cut them some slack here, don’t you think? “To sleep, perchance to dream. Ah there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

Many people seem convinced that everything that happened on the island was real. However, why did Jack say "I'm already dead" when Hurley didn't want him to cork the evil or whatever it was? Did he mean he was going to die, or had he died already?

I've been a loyal Lost fan for the past several years and I've seen every episode. I think the writers just created too many strings to tie together in the end. I don't care if it is a metaphor for life where not all questions are answered, I feel that is a cop-out. I want my questions answered.

The ending could have been written by a 5th grader. Who cares if they all died at the end and were together and "went into the light." That isn't brilliant or moving, it's feel-good religious nonsense aimed at people who find that comforting. The sideways world did not at all seem like it was written as an "in-between" at first where everyone had already died. I really was not impressed with the final choice.

To sum up, the writers treated us as Jacob and Smokey's mother treated them: they killed our real mother who would tell us the truth and instead spoon fed us lies without answering our questions so we would do what they wanted (tune in episode after epsidode, increasing their ratings and revenue) all leading up to a dead-end.

"Like the smoke monster, they didn't exist any more than that stupid plane did; they were plot devices made up by hell/purgatory to encourage the characters to make "choices." Neither Miles nor Lapidus were required to make moral choices. They just went with the flow. (Do you really think Miles escaped from Ben's closet? Who was it that could hear the dead? And so on.) Sayid did; what redeemed him was his choice of taking the explosives away from his friends to protect them. He chose to sacrifice himself for the others despite every other indication that he was destined for no good and believed in nothing. Sayid was in the church."

I like it, but Charlotte and Daniel were in the church. If Miles/Lapidus never existed, then technically neither did Charlotte or Daniel since they all came on the same freighter. Bottom line is there are loopholes, but the series overall was one of the best series going. More proof that the people died on the plane is that Aaron was just a baby in the church. He never grew up, and since he died as a fetus basically, they could only represent him as a newborn.

I think you're on to something there. Let's go one step forward, maybe, and say that he was dreaming and, while the plane was on its final approach towards the island, the stewardess wakes him up, and he says, "Wow! That was one heck of a dream I just had!", and then the plane crashes into the island. Taking even one step further, he is forced to repeat all six seasons again, only to wake up at the end alive on the plane, which is on its descent to the island. Yes, this could be the Groundhog Day version of the show!

I think that most people who liked it were duped by a horrible ending done beautifully. It was just lipstick on a pig. I agree that the writers dug themselves into a massive hole that they could not get out of. I actually feel that the ending insulted my intelligence. I really am glad some people found "peace" with ending. I'm sure not one of 'em!

The finale was a giant cop out. They played the emotional heart strings so that they'd distract from the fact they large questions the writer's themselves made nearly the entire series revolve around weren't even approached.

The writers duped a large majority of their fans into thinking the show was a sci-fi mystery when all along, it was Grey's Anatomy on an Island.

Very disappointed with the finale. Still love the series but wish they hadn't given a middle finger to the fans of the mysteries.

1 The Island – Since it is the source of all life, of course it would be under water in the flash sideways. They're all dead. That was a HUGE clue as to what was going on.

2. Sayid and Shannon – Nadia was someone that Sayid tortured and ultimately killed for after she was murdered. She would always invoke his bad side. Shannon only knew him on the island in the early episodes as a better person than he was in the real world.

3. If you felt the writers were lazy, then you probably were for expecting everything to be spoon fed to you like you were a baby. There are dozens of bad shows for you to watch on network television that will do exactly that. Please go clog their comment areas about how great they are for explaining everything in detail.

It seems that a lot of Lost fans will never be at Peace. Did they expect the writers to unlock all of the secrets of the universe after they explained what happens to people in the after life? It's TV. It's Fiction. Do you really think there's an Island in the South Pacific with smoke monsters and people that live forever?? If it's possible to have one alternate reality in the afterlife..... why would it not be possible to have multiple? I see so many people referring to "purgatory" as if it has a zip code.

I believe that season one began with Jacks eye opening and season 6 with Jacks eye closeing because what began came around and ended full circle. It was real experiences that everyone had, but was all seen thru Jacks eyes as a naritive. To show it thru more than one persons eyes would have left to much up to the interpataion of each individual and would have become a jumbled mess from the get go. Jack didn't understand everything that happened therefore he can't explain it to us. That is why we have unanswered questions. I think it was close to life as a tv show can get. We all live we all die and we will never have all the answere to all the questions. We just make the best of it and try to be the best person we can be.

I believe that they all did physically die on impact but I believe that their spirtual journey or consciousness countinued on the island, which was a waiting room for their souls. Their experiences prepared them for the next step to their ultimate destination ( purgatory, limbo, heaven, reincarnation, etc.). That explains why Aaron was still a baby and women could not get pregnant and all the supernatural stuff that occured on the island that contradicts our laws of nature. I think that everyone that they came in contact with whether they were on the island or not , e.g. Penny, or whether they were in the same time period or not, were already dead too and were working out their issues in their own reality. Everyone was not in the church because they had already moved on or because their issues were still unresolved and they couldn't let go, e.g. Ben. And maybe some people never moved on but were stuck on one plane for an indefinite period of time. When Christian said everything really happened he was right. Everything did really happen in their consciousness in the aftelife. After reading a tremendous amount of posts and obsessing about the finale I wanted to share my thoughts with everyone and it actually has been very cathartic for me. Whether I am right or not I had to make sense of it in my own mind and I think it has actually given me closure.

I'm not defending or attacking the finale in this post, but I did want to comment on one of the more amusing recurring quibbles in this thread. In the sideways universe, the Losties are revealed to be in a sort of purgatory that exists beyond time, space, and logic. It is entirely a conceptual creation. It's completely possible that any given character is "simultaneously" experiencing a similar sort of purgatory redemption or catharsis with other people from their lives that have nothing to do with the Island before moving on to the "next" step of the light beyond those doors.

And yet you're actually asking why this or that particular person was or wasn't in the church or why Kate's clothes changed? Attempting to apply reason at that point is funny.

craig - "Why wasn't Miles and Lapidus in the church then if the plane never made it back?"

Like the smoke monster, they didn't exist any more than that stupid plane did; they were plot devices made up by hell/purgatory to encourage the characters to make "choices." Neither Miles nor Lapidus were required to make moral choices. They just went with the flow. (Do you really think Miles escaped from Ben's closet? Who was it that could hear the dead? And so on.) Sayid did; what redeemed him was his choice of taking the explosives away from his friends to protect them. He chose to sacrifice himself for the others despite every other indication that he was destined for no good and believed in nothing. Sayid was in the church.

The show has given you every hint in the world to understand that the characters were in purgatory and needed to prove themselves for what they really were, one way or another. e.g. Michael was a bad man, willing to turn his back on the others and using the saving of his son as an excuse to do so. He descended to the next lower level of hell. Nikki and Paolo were greedy and paid the price. Characters that were killed off in the service of their fellows (e.g. Charlie) were seen later in the church, redeemed.

The ending was perfect. The writers were not lazy, they chose to leave LOST's mysteries just that – as so often things in real life will never be fully known or resolved. As for someone's comment that they didn't understand why Penny and Desmund would be amongst the dead if all the Oceanic folks were dead, Jack's dad answered that question. He said that not only where he and Jack were at the end was real, but he said everything Jack had experienced was real (i.e. the island, the people, the events, etc.) Papa Sheppard also stated that time was meaningless where Jack was now. That is the concept fundamental to an afterlife – there is no "time" in eternity. So with regards to Penny in particular, she was there in the "afterlife" because of her importance to Desmund and the eventuality of her rejoining with him. She may have in fact lived a very long life after Jack, Kate, Desmund and the rested died, but her return to Desmund and the rest would be in her youthful form, the form Desmund knew her in... This is the concept of 'heaven' clearly stated. Where we go is to those we loved when we loved them most and even then such a concept as intangible as heaven still holds no bounds to anything we are aware of in reality... It is what is it and what is most important to each of us...

What a boring ending to an otherwise exciting series. I'm not even bothered that there were so many unanswered questions (like where were Michael and Walt in the sideways flashes?), but how can you have a time traveller, two men who can talk to dead people, an immortal, a smoke monster and whatever the heck Desmond is and not really utilize any of them to add excitement to the conclusion? I was expecting a huge redeeming sacrifice from Ben, a last-minute appearance from Daniel Farraday. something bizarre from Desmond...anything. It was like they worked hard to keep it as tame as possible.

This is an attempt to lay some ground work for discussion. If you are basing your whole interpretation of the show off the final scene with Christian Shepherd, you are selling the whole series and the writers short.

I see three possible endings and they are all left open to interpretation. Personally, I find all three interpretations intriguing.

1) The Losties survived the plane crash, and everything on the island happened.

Pros – The Losties got to know each other over time. The dialogue with Christian Shepherd at the end can be taken literally.
Cons – Some weird island mysteries and surviving a hydrogen bomb blast need to be explained. The ending pictures of the undisturbed plane wreckage makes no sense.

2) The Losties survived the plane crash, but died when the hydrogen bomb exploded.

Pros – The Losties got to know each other over time. The dialogue with Christian Shepherd at the end can be taken somewhat literally. The purgatory timeline was created because of the deaths of the Losties. They just needed to realize they were dead before they could move on from purgatory and the Island.
Cons – Some weird island mysteries still need to be explained. The ending pictures of the undisturbed plane wreckage makes no sense.

3) The Losties died in the plane crash, but lived an entire life on the island in a fraction of a second.

Pros – The Losties got to know each other over a lifetime in a single instant. No island mysteries to solve. No explanation needed for surviving a hydrogen bomb blast. Purgatory was created at the very beginning. Closing plane wreckage scene fits. Mathew Fox said that he believes this is what happened.

Cons – The dialogue with Christian Shepherd at the end needs to be interpreted.

"Yeah, I'm real. You're real. Everything that's ever happened to you is real. All those people in the church – they're all real too."

Even though a lifetime of events happened to you in a split second doesn't make it any less real.

"Everyone dies some time, kiddo. Some of them before you, some long after you."

Everyone's split second lasts different lengths of time

"The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people."

The most important part of Jack's life all happened within a split second. Jack was alive during the split second.

Okay, the sub blew up. But if you remember, John Locke told everyone that the plane was rigged and left and everyone followed him. So when did he have the time to go back and take every single bit of explosives off the plane and put it in the backpack??? Time wise, it makes no sense.

How much did the story line change over six seasons due to actors dropping out for various reasons? Even if "eye open – eye close" were set in place from pilot to finale, what was the original conception of the piece and how far did it stray?

If the smoke monster left the island what could it possibly do to the "real" world" to make it even more evil than it already is? Man seems to have filled that notch to perfection.

I have wondered since the beginning episode six years ago if Rose ever remembered what the hooting of the monster in the jungle reminded her of. Did I miss that answer?

And did the Black Pearl end up dumped in the middle of the island because it happened to be sailing above it during one of those transfers between time and/or space?

Who built the wheel, the container around the light well, and the seeing mirrors in the lighthouse? It's too bad that ever-intemperate Jack smashed them. Just think how helpful they could have been for Hurley and Ben during their future stewardship of the island.

Why do we revere the workings and writings of ancient humans when we truly know a great deal more about what's going on around us now? (And yes, what we know is still minuscule.)

And finally, would anyone an eternity of ANYTHING if they really thought about it? Give me oblivion, please.

Lost people come to the Island chosen by the Island’s Guardian. All have messed up their lives, none trusts anyone, some are near despair. They have adventures on the Island that change them, perhaps guided by the Guardian. There are puzzles to solve, dangers, evil monsters, and choices. Some of the Lost come together to do what they think will put things right, blowing up a construction site for example. Because they come together for the greater good, an alternate, better, timeline, perhaps seen by the Guardian when he chose them in the first place, becomes available. In that timeline there is the possibility of recognizing each other by touch. On the Island time continues and the people live or don’t. Only from among them, however, will a new Guardian come forward. For this story, the ending could be a cruise ship wreck with the survivors coming to the Island. We’d see them confused, running about, some hurt, others helping, many concerned only with themselves. From the trees, Hurley and Ben will be watching and Ben, our Devil’s Advocate, might remark, ‘Well, let’s see how this bunch does.’

at this point I dont care who is right and who is wrong..... the fact that people can be SO certain about what it all meant is absurd. It was a TV show... further more it was a TV show written by two guys admittedly just "dropped" portions of the story line when they didnt pan out or make sense! Good or bad, right or wrong, finale or no finale it was a GD TV show... it appauls me that people are being mocked and called "idiots" for not sharing the same view point as those who are "ABSOLUTELY" right (in their minds). Those of you who are turning this into some theological debate are indeed "LOST". Hate it or love it, I can accept it for what it was... a TV show. Debate = progess, but what Ive read for the most part is not debate. Its straight up persecution for someone elses ideas and beliefs. I am not an idiot, I am intellectual and I DID pay attention.... but I refuse to say anyone is dead right or dead wrong about a TV show that was built on being open to debate and many different theories... The show its self has never been straight forward about anything so I will not assume that anything that was said in the finale or otherwise is irrevocably and unequivically true (i.e. "its all real Jack").... my reality is what I make it...

I hoped for so much more and something different. 6 years to find out they are all just dead. The last ten minutes felt rushed to me. It was if the writers didn't know how to tie the story together. There are still so mny questions that weren't answered. And why wasn't Walt and his Dad at the church? They seemed to be the only ones missing? The finale did NOT do the series justice.

First and foremost, Lost is a love story with a lot of action and suspense that appealed all walks of life, that families could watch together. It kept everyone talking for 6 years, not many shows on TV can do what Lost did. Waiting for it's return every season, even for almost a year.
Everyone needs to remember what Rose said "you can let go now".
Let go now...

Why does everyone think they were dead the whole time? You obviously aren't a true Lost fan and didn't EVER get the series at all! Dig deep into your spirituality and figure it out! They all died at some point, as we all do. They ended up in the sideways upon their death, whether they were 30 years old or 80 when they died. Waited for eachother and went to Heaven together. IT WAS AWESOME!

Why is everyone waiting for Jack at the end when he is obviously one of the first to die since he was on the island and Kate, sawyer, Claire left the island. Shouldn't him, Sun, Jin, Shannon be waiting for kate, sawyer and the ones that escaped the island

My frustration is "What was the point?" The sideways was purgatory then what was the point of the island? Actually, what was the point of the whole show? And the answer is "no point", expcept you lost 6 years.

Chris, even if that were true, none of them (Claire, Sawyer, Kate, Miles, and Lupitas) would have actually died in the plane crash because that's not a feasible ending.

Furthermore, your points about Jack's experience in the church make him seem to be at the center of the Universe. What if the people who Jack imagines as most important to him frankly don't care too much for him (or the other people who showed up)? Also, each person will have tangental relationships that don't specifically include Jack. Are we to believe that these people have to forgo these relationships just to satisfy Jack? Or maybe each person has a different experience. If so, that would take a lot of coordination to get all of the right souls to the right churches at the right time just to make everyone's church experience special for him or her. I guess that's why they had to wait in the sideways timeline place so that they could all see Jack off.

I thought the ending was extremely well-done. But one question came to mind during the show that made no sense – if you remember, John Locke checked the plane and found it rigged with explosives. That's when he decided to go to the sub instead. But in the show, they were able to take off just fine and the explosives had magically disappeared. Was it just a fluke or bad writing?"

MIB took the explosives and put them in th backpack that blew up the sub.

I can't believe so many people don't understand what happened at the end. PEOPLE, the island was real. Everything that happened on the island was real. The reason that Michael wasn't at the church at the end was because he was stuck on the island in spirit mode. The reason that walt wasn't at the church at the end was because these people weren't the most important part of his life.....these people were just a snippet of his life and ultimately don't play a major role in how his life played out. I was a bit surprised that Libby was there......and honestly I would have liked it more if Ben and Hurley want in together as friends. Ben and Hurley potentially could have been on the island as guardians for decades......so I would have figured them "moving on" together. The ending also leads one to thinking that Sawyer, Claire, Kate and Aaron lead basically uneventful lonely lives after they get back to the states since Claire needed Charlie, Sawyer needed Juliet and Kate needed the birth of Aaron to remind them of the island and that it was time to let go and move on. If I were to hypothesize, I would guess that the plane never made it back......and that the five of them (Claire, Sawyer, Kate, Miles and Lupitas) nevermade it.

In case you didn't notice, not everyone from Flight 815 was in that church. As to why they weren't there? Who knows, who cares, you're nitpicking too much and you're not appreciating what a beautifuly crafted ending this was.

The Island was real. What happened there happened. Did we get all the answers? No. Do we really need them? Not if you concentrate on the main plot. The only really big thing that was never explained was what exactly is that light? And I must confess, the writers cheated us on that one.

But besides that, the finale as a whole was pretty great and tied up all the major loose ends.

I thought the ending was extremely well-done. But one question came to mind during the show that made no sense – if you remember, John Locke checked the plane and found it rigged with explosives. That's when he decided to go to the sub instead. But in the show, they were able to take off just fine and the explosives had magically disappeared. Was it just a fluke or bad writing?

WHY are you even bothering to comment on something you didn't experience? Trolls...

To those who are mad that the show had religious or spiritual overtones:

GET OVER IT. This isn't 'Create Your Own Story'. This is what the story of 'Lost' entais. If you don't like the connotations, fine. You wanted a science-based (Jack) ending, not a spiritual (Locke) one, ok....but spirituality was at the heart of the Island, and the show.

I'm beginning to see that it makes sense that the sideways timeline was a purgatory rather than an equally real timeline. Is there anyone who would argue that the sideways timeline AND the island timeline are both "real"?

I dvr'd the finale, read posts/blogs monday morning, then watched it last night. It made so much more sense after reading the blogs. My wife didn't read anything and was left so much in the dark and was very disappointed in the ending, until I explained some of the theories that I had read. I have to admit, I probably would have been shopping for a new tv monday if I didn't have some of the insight posted.
I was expecting it to be more centered on the island. Not answering all the question because they really couldn't but having Jack/MIB now running the island and playing the games. I was expecting Jack and who ever the MIB would be (Locke or someone else I thought Sawyer) sitting on the beach in front of the statue redoing the scene from the beginning of season 6 with Jacob and MIB as the ending.

Here is my two cents after reading some of the posts and making sense of the finale for myself. I agree with those that think that the island was just a level of the purgatory and the flash sideways was the final level. This would explain why the charracters didn't "die" after the atom bomb was set off... they were not ready to move on and/or they have not redeemed themselves.

For all of us that are truly disappointed in the ending....What a GREAT movie it would be. And don't give me...."The Producers said" They said we were not going to be in purgatory too!!! They have lied repeatedly. And they stand to make alot more with a movie than selling their series on DVD. I'm on stand-by....funny how no interviews on how their fan base reacted??? Hmmm....my money is on them making more money!!!

Interesting how one of the characters also played a hobbit in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Lost is probably the backstory to the creation of Middle Earth. I mean, think about it, all of the clues are there.

Utter rubbish an insult to your viewers, wasted 6 years watching this turgid detritus
Although on a brighter note ,I now know ,to avoid anything written by these two deceivers,
Thanks for nothing .I'm sure your laughing all the way to the bank
AWFUL you guys should run for any political party ,your fully qualified to deceive dissemble , absolutly no honour ,

Never was a huge fan of LOST, but watched episodes from time to time over 6 years. I did follow season 6 quite closely and the more time I've had to think about the finale, the better the show becomes for me.

To all those who still believe everyone died on the crash and the writers lied about the island being purgatory, you need to watch the finale again.

To all those who want answers to all the scientific details and have every loose end tied up, you're proabably missing the big picture and getting too bogged down by the details. Just like the characters in the show who are lost themselves at the beginning.

Take your time, step back, watch it again and I think you'll like the ending more.

People who think they died in the crash werent paying attention. The last 15 minutes, Christian Shephard spells it out for you
"everything that happened to you was real, everyone of these people is real"
Ben tells Hurley "you were a great number 1"
Hurley tells ben "you were a great number 2"
Because Hurley was in charge of the island now that jack died.
ALSO, Christian flat out says "some died before you, some long after you"

Kate also say "we waited along time for you" because she lived her life off the island
The plane crash was real, everything on the island happened, the alternate timeline was a place they created to find each other. All of this is VERBALLY said in the episode.

Imaginos - you are spot on! They'll put out a newer and better version of the DVDs every year with newer and better cast out takes and interviews. And for the ten-year anniversary edition, they'll have a smoke monster statuette that you can set atop your television, etc., etc., etc.

I can't believe no one is seeing why the answers weren't coughed up in the finale. Call me cynical, but I'd lay odds: to better sell the DVD box set of the entire series it will have a special section where the producers will answer the questions everyone is dying to know....

Just watched the finale on the PVR this a.m. Overall, it was a good closure to the the series and an emotional ending with Vincent/Jack. However, I’m somewhat a bit miffed that the initial viewer speculation about the show at the very beginning of the series 6 years ago all centered around the characters being dead and in some form of purgatory which was the island. The LOST exec’s quickly denounced this theory. And here we are at the end realizing this is exactly what the premise of the show turned out to be.

The only caveat I have with the finale on the whole is where was the closure for Walt & Michael? Perhaps I missed ,or have have forgotten, some detail on a previous episode?

Anyway, I am satisfied with the whole story and will likely watch it all again on my DVD set and the subsequent already pre-ordered Blu-ray Complete Series edition. And is there a chance Hollywood will eke out a theatrical movie deal?

Anyone else ever notice the word play in Jack's dad's name, Christian Shephard? Like, the Shephard of the Christians? That allegory makes more sense in why he was the omniscient one with all the answers...

Their cast choice for "Mother" in "Across the Sea" was very telling. As you know, Allison Janney played C. J. Cregg on the hit television show "The West Wing" portraying a spokesperson for a Democratic Presidential Administration. It's interesting, then, that she would have killed the real mother of Jacob and MIB. What were her motives? Did President Bartlett order this assassination or was it some type of cover up conceived by Josh and Leo McGarry. I think we may never know.

I loved the ending! It was unexpected and emotionally satisfying to me. I thought it was gutsy of the producers and writers to do that.. The acting was really superb as always, especially Matthew Fox! The musical score was fabulous as well! Everyone please stop whining about it and use your imagination for the unanswered questions. That's life – there are many mysteries that cannot be explained!! In my opinion without "Lost" and "24" TV will never be the same!

I also think when Cuse and Lindelof said the finale went from being 2 hours to 2.5 hours, the only thing they did was to chop off the segments to fit in more commercials. Shameful!

Unfortunately, for some people who struggled to understand the final episode, they first felt lost, and had so many questions. You can see this on most discussion boards. Then they read the blogs, and many theories posted there. Once they find some reasonable explanation somewhere, and they think they understood what happened, they start posting on the same boards that all the questions were answered, and they really liked the ending. Most of the people in this category are those who post positively here, and insist that the ending was great, and all questions were answered.

Dear friends: it was not about the finale. It was not about getting answers for all the questions posed in the finale. It was about years of mystery, and 6 years of other episodes.

As a an agnostic, like many I was drawn to this show and watched since the first episode. The Lindelof and Cuse could have gone down many paths, like the battle of good and evil within each person, but they chose this ending to reach out to a new group of fans. By doing this, they entirely destroyed what Lost has been for many, in 5-10 minutes.

I wish it was possible for some network to pick up the show and continue it after the fifth season in the direction that has been the destiny of this fantastic series, so that it can erase all this religious nonesense (including pergatory and murder of a mother and taking her children among others) fed to us in this season. As it stands now, I can no longer consider myself a LOST fan.

..."2. It didn't answer all the little mysteries that weren't important to the story (and many of which can be answered with some critical thinking)."...

How do you explain the atom bomb going off while they were apparatly alive on the island, and living after the blast. The alternate universe may have been created by the bomb, but how was the real universe not destroyed? Also, Juliette was alive at the bottom of the wreckage, after she set off the bomb... this makes me wonder whether they were ever alive on the island. Also think about the scene of hte plain crash during the credits.

Key unanswered questions that they spent so much time setting up but failed to answer. Mysteries are good but without a resolution, they are pointless. The point of mystery/suspense is the ultimate climactic aspect. The end was anticlimactic. Despite its great music and choreography. And statements made by Cuse, etc.. earlier in the series were never followed through such as meeting Henry Gale. It's good to create mysteries and questions that make us create the answers ourselves, however there are too many– its overwhelming and the end creates a quick resolution- one minute we are on the island, the next minute everyone is dead and in heaven meeting up in one point in space/time.

1. What was the point of the electromagnetic water in the Finale? What was it? If there are pockets of it around the world - what does that mean for the world?
2. Why did Jacob condone the purge?
3. Who were the skeletons in the cave exactly? Aside from being part of the DI
4. What was the ancient Egyptian civilization that clearly inhabited the island role in all of this?
5. What was the role of the Tawaret statue?
6. Why could women not give childbirth and die at the third trimester?
7. How did Jacob and the Man in Black create the rules? Loopholes?
8. How did Jacob and the MiB’s pseudo-mother get to the island?
9. Why are “stoppers” the key to Lost? Seems a bit cheesy.
10. How did the smoke monster become the smoke monster? How does a cloud of smoke come from someone being thrown into a cave?

What makes me so angry with the writers is they emphatically said that these people were NOT dead and they were NOT in purgatory. Obviously they lied here. The fans guessed the truth long ago. The writers had to lie their way out of it.

Much easier to do what they did versus answering all the questions they created. They dug that hole way too deep to crawl out of.

Just an observation, but people are saying the writer's cheated because they promised "no purgatory". Look up the definition purgatory (the place where those who have died in a state of grace undergo limited torment to expiate their sins)......the flash sideways is not purgatory, it's simply a meeting place, or waiting room if you will, created by the souls/subconscious of the 815 survivors so that when they die, whenever that may be because they clearly did not die in the crash, they could meet up and cross over together. They did this because of how significant they all were to one another.

We were very satisfied with the ending. In my opinion a "cheat" or cop out would have been to pull aliens out of the hat and announce that they were the cause of everything or something else that would have felt like they simply ran out of energy, money, or time. They stayed well within the theme with no rude surprises.

My husband (a Christian like myself) has proposed the theory that when we get to heaven everything that made us happy when we were alive is already there waiting for us–friends, relatives, and pets (both those those we left behind and those who've gone ahead). Obviously the writers of Lost decided to go with a similar approach. Heaven exists outside of time (it's always "now here, Jack), so this worked beautifully.

The plane wreck really happened and the trials they'd all faced both on the island and off had been very real. Jacob was real, the smoke monster was real. The power of the island had been real. Jack martyred himself for the world's sake, for the sake of his friends, but had not worked through his issues– i.e. he needed more time. So he along with several others, were sent to an in between place and given time to resolve his questions and even redeem themselves in some respects, without the weight of the island and all that had happened there on their shoulders. When they were ready, the truth was revealed to them and they went into the "light".

This show said–in essence–that everything happens for a reason, that no one is beyond redemption, and, further more,t no matter how noble and pure you are, you are subject to the same frailties and face the same weaknesses as everyone else. Ego will always be man's downfall. Life is full of mysteries, unresolved conflicts, and unanswered questions. We often go to our graves with these hanging over our heads. The ending of Lost reflected this truth.

I loved the finale!!! The ONLY thing that i was concerned about is the group leaving the island on the plane. When Flocke killed Zoey and Widmore...I'm pretty darn sure that Widmore made a statement to the affect that he rigged that plane with C4...Flocke only took the one or two bars connected to the wire for the sub explosion, but I thought Widmore said there was a LOT more on there...that it was connected to the start up of the plane or something. Flocke got that C4 from the cabin of the plane. I would think it would be in the front of the plane maybe?? I thought they were all gonna blow up...

"From Hurley telling Ben what a great number 2 he had been (indicating that their lives continued long after Jack died) and Jack's father telling him flat out that the island was real". "As Christian explained, there is no 'here'. There is no 'time'. It's just happening. Some could have died 5 years earlier, some 50 years later. That doesn't matter. It's where they all meet when they did die. Like Hurley and Ben who protected the island. They died much later, but are in the same 'time' as everyone in the afterlife". Thanks, I first thought they all must have died in the crash and was disappointed, but I think I'm beginning to process this today. What happened on the Island was real, Sideways = purgatory. Harold Perrineau (Michael) told Jimmy K that Michael was not at the church becuse he was still "stuck" on the Island with the other whispering voices. Des said Ana Lucia "wasn't ready. I like to think Ben was waiting for Rousseau and Alex.

Lost is a show about self-discovery. The writers spelled this out numerous times, most notably in the finale when they literally had Hurley tell Sayid "You can't let other people tell you who you are."

The island, the light, the malevolence, the cork, they're all just general symbols to bring to light questions about the soul, about human nature, and about the purpose of life.

It would be hypocritical of the writers to provide anything more than suggestions or allusions to their opinions about these topics because they would be telling you what to think about your soul, human nature, and life. Effectively, if they provided explicit answers, they'd just be telling you what to think about yourself. Hence, hypocrisy.

The point is there is no universal answer to these questions. The answers must be your own.

LOST is/was a cross between a "six year never ending story" and a "hodgepodge unexplainable dream" brought on by the flu / RX drugs and/or high fever. If you like that type of thing – you loved LOST and good for you – we're not all the same – and that's good for us. If you don't like the confusion of the story (and I'm one of those) – LOST was a complete waste of time. WHICH is why – I didn't watch it but a few times and am not sorry it's off the air.

I thought that the scene at the end of the plane crash was the plane that Kate and Sawyer and Miles and the pilot were on- like they crashed and never made it off the island- and that's how they all died? If not, then why would they show a plane crash scene?

I'm going to quote the Grateful Dead " ' what a long strange trip it's been.' " And one that I wouldn't have missed for the world!! I will also miss everyone's comments on what did or did not happen – it's been a very interesting place to visit. Happy to say I've enjoyed being Lost. And the ending ROCKED!!!

Excellent 6 year run and perfect ending for me.
I think the ending was a great interpretation of what death could be for those who believe in that kind of thing.
I agree with the reporter in the video that stated the bar has been set high for other TV series.
It's hands down, one of the best written series in TV history.

Although I didn't like the ending at all (I agree they could have done so much more with it based on the 6 year storyline that was "Lost"), but for those of you still confused about "were they dead?", "is Jack really dead?", "where was this one and that one", I don't get it. Jack's father clearly mentions that everyone in the church created the world they were experienceing in the final episode to be together. That the experience they had together was the most important thing that happened to them in their lives. That some ppl died on the island and others died many years later. The show we saw Sunday night could have been in the year 2030 for all we know. Those who weren't part of the scene, well maybe they A) didn't want to take part in the season finale, or B) had no emotional/spiritual need for that afterlife reunion.

Wow, the writers wanted to fit in something from every single genre out there. That's great for setting up complicated plots, but it needs to pay off. I'm not sure this ending did. You're hoping you're going to get answers to years worth of mysteries, but it all ends up being swept away as a mystical experience. It's very, very similar to the ending of the otherwise imaginative Battlestar Galactica.

People have been assuming that the "Sideways" world happened similtaneously with the island world, but I think that the island world happened. They lived, it was real, and then the "sideways" world was a limbo for them to reunite before moving on from life.

I mean, his dad said that he spent the best parts of his life with the people from the island. He didn't know them before the island....so it had to have really happened.

I think they have ended it by all the group going to Heaven except the Smoke monster would be alive and stuck on the island. As he stares out into the sea, "Wilson" the vollyball washes up and becomes his only friend.
The End
LOL

Did anyone go to the Fathom Event for Lost? I did. The NY Times interviewed the two creators of Lost and asked many questions, as well as the audience. The obvious question that was asked was "Are all the questions going to be answered in the final episode?" They said no, and that they put a little hint to that in the second to the last episode, when the "mother" said that questions just lead to more questions. They did say that they were influenced by the viewers and would respond to feedback in later episodes when they could. What they said that was most important were two things: One – not everything has an answer, and Two – many times they went down a road and didn't like where it was going, or it didn't work, and they just dropped it!!!!!! Just dropped it!!!!!! So.....I think that there are many more mysteries than there was supposed to be because they changed their minds a lot. And of course we read into these things, and kept thinking they were clues, or made us crazy wondering why things happened or why we never heard from some characters again. Then they said that Walt for example, had to go because he was 12 when they hired him to play an 8 year old, and he started puberty and didn't fit the character any longer. Arbitrary stuff!!!! Meaningless stuff that confused the viewers. Having said that, the BIG picture is what people should concentrate on. Don't read too much into it. I think they wanted us to argue about whether it was purgatory or if they died on impact, etc. It kept the show going. Hey they said it.....they changed their minds....a lot.

So someone just answer me this: When they left the Island the first time and Kate was raising Arron etc.. was that real? Were they alive then? How did Locke get off the Island the first time? Where have I missed all this?

To Mike Kartus: I totally agree with you. Because of the ending, I not longer want to be associated with Lost, and I cannot recommend it to anyone. So much religion down our throats.

I am all for leaving some open-ended questions, but these must be planned carefully by thw writers. What the people who are defending so many loose ends do not realize is that these are clearly a result of poor planning and bad writing, and could not have been intentional. Lindelof and Cuse claim that everything is intentional, but they are underestimating the intelligence of their viewers.

I will not argue too much on the ending meaning: it is obvious that the island was real and the sideways are a kind of limbo. Christian Sheppard is clear on this. Read the above comments and you will see that this is the only explanation that is shared among a significant number of posters.

Let me rather try to push how powerful this idea is:
– The sixth season takes a complete different meaning. If you follow the timeline, right after jack dies and closes his eyes (end of last episode), he enters the limbo and the off-island sideways (first episode of season 6 where he wakes up in the plane). The off-island sideways are almost like a seventh season within the sixth ! They show all the people who have come close to the light having the chance to redeem themselves.
There you have:
a) people who don’t want to move forward, fearing that might get separated from the one they love eg: Eloise fearing of going to hell, while Daniel will go to heaven
b) those who want to stay a little longer, like Ben who knows that he has more redeeming work to perform
c) those who want to go faster, like Desmond
d) those who don’t know yet, like Jack

– it is a “full ending explanation”. The writers are setting the light not on the origin but on the end, and on this aspect you cannot get further: we follow the character after their death and even as they leave the limbo. It is a finale that doesn’t make you want to ask “what next ? “ because you know that’s impossible to reasonably ask them to discuss of what’s after the after-death.

Ok, maybe you’ll still ask “what before” ? (before the light, before Jacob’s mother, etc). But if you think deeply a) it is impossible to stop this kind of “what before” questioning. Lost cannot go backwards to the dinosaurs. b) you don’t really want to know. What will you do if they tell us that the light comes let’s say from a specific kind of stone on the island ? Nothing. Because what you like about an idea is not its precision or that it is completely explainable it is its overall strength, how it echoes to symbols and images you have in your mind. And the Light is a strong idea. After all, as the writers pointed out, Star Wars only gave crappy and elusive explanations of the Force and everyone bought it, and they did not ask for what was before the Force.

The last episode just made more questions... Here are some of the ones that I just can't figure out...

Before Sayid died, he said "It's got to be Jack." When Jack was about to die, he said, "It has to be you, Hurley." Do you think Sayid was supposed to be the protector of the island?

I think Jack knew he wasn't supposed to be the protector, because he said to Locke, "Jacob didn't choose me. I volunteered." Do you think Jack knew that Sayid was supposed to be the protector, and that by sacrificing himself, Sayid was passing the torch to Jack?

Michael, Walt and Vincent were obviously missing from the final scene. If that scene represented their last meeting before moving on to the afterlife, do you think Michael, Walt and Vincent weren't there because they'd already moved on together?

When we first started seeing the "flash-sideways" at the beginning of the season, we assumed that we were watching the characters live their lives as if the plane never crashed... Now, I think differently.

I think we were watching the Island's plan unfold. It seemed as though everyone was lead right to church, as if their entire existence in the "flash-sideways" was built for that one moment when they all met up and moved on together. So we watched the characters slowly come to accept their deaths, and watched them learn their last lessons on life before they died through the "flash-sideways"...

For instance, Jack understood the relationship he had with his father better and was able to make peace with his father's death by having a son of his own in the "flash-sideways". He missed his son at the concert, just as his father had probably missed many events with Jack, because he was hard at work. Jack truly wanted to be there with his son, though, and this helped him realize that his father really loved him, even though he was unable to show it sometimes. Right?

Another thing... I swear I remember seeing a plane crash into the foot of the statue. Was that the plane that Miles, Sawyer, Kate, Richard and Lapidus were on? Was that how they died?

Does anyone remember when Mr. Ecko was building a church on the island? Charlie thought he was crazy. Mr. Ecko kept saying that they needed a place to come together. He never had a chance to complete it on the island because the smoke monster killed him. I would say in the finale the church WAS completed.

Multiple Questions about the island remain.
1) Why did the Smoke Monster kill some people, but not kill others?
2) Who was in the cabin?
3) What was all of that ash made of, who put it around the cabin, why did it keep out smoke monster?
4) How was Dogen keeping the smoke monster out of the temple?
5) Who built the structures on the island? Im sure it was the same as the skeletons in the source.
6) What made some people (Miles, Walt, Jacob's Brother, Locke) special? And what could they actually do that regular humans couldn't?
7) Did Jacob like Ben?
8) How did Elois Hawking know everything? What did she do to get kicked off the island?
9) Why couldn't kids be conceived on the island?
10) Why did Jack and Ben get sick on the Island?
11) Was the island sentient?
12) How did Dharma and Military find the Island?
13) What did Juliet mean when she said "It Worked"?
14) Did Sawyer get reunited with his Daughter?
15) Did Claire raise Aaron?
16) What did Hurley and Ben do on the island?
17)who were the people in the "light" cavern
18)Where did Jacob MIB mother come from
19)How did she make these rules go into place

I really liked it but after I thought about it and wrapped my head around it all then read Doc Jensen's recap part one, I decided I LOVED the finale. Amazingly well done. I have no understanding of why there is confusion. Everything that happened on the island really happened. The flash sideways world was the waiting place (not a purgatory) where the souls waited for everyone to reach an enlightenment and they'd all be on the same page.

Everyone had imagined themselves in a better life, redeemed as it were. I think the only one not improved was Kate but then I think she enjoyed the thrill of the chase. I believe Hurley and Ben lived out their lives on the island and Hurley got a new protector for the island because that is the way it goes. I believe Kate, Claire, etc. jetted off and lived their lives and died. They all looked the same because that's how Jack remembered them. Ben still had issues to work out in his head and didn't forgive himself even though Locke forgave him so he needed to stay behind and work it through. Walt wasn't important to the storyline (neither was Aaron) and he's living with his grandmother. Michael is dead and his soul is still on the island hoping for redemption because he was a murderer (Ana Lucia and Libby). Rose and Bernard lived out their lives on the island and died. Eventually all the souls met again in flash sideways and could move on together. They were able to let go and move on.

Which is what the people need to do who are flogging the story to death for details that were not important. It was a beautiful story, a great ride, and the most awesome ending ever. Well done LOST, well done!

Wake up people! Isn't it clear that Jack was Christian? The fat guy with curly hair was clearly Jesus and Faraday's first name is Michael – check Wiki if you don't believe – and he put them all in the cage he invented. Why do people talk about MIB? Will Smith was not in this series... or was he?

In the first five minutes of the first episode, which is about how much I watched of Lost, there was some terrifying growling in the bushes that scared the survivors. Has anyone figured out what that was?
I think Jacob should have been voted out sooner.

He was in the suit at the church. Maybe he was imagining himself in the (jeans/shirt) clothes on the island like his made up story, and when he went to heaven he had on what he was wearing when he actually died. I donno… the writers definitely made the whole series open for interpretation. It seems like everyone has their own thoughts on what is actual and what is not. I normally go by the theory that the easiest, most logical way to explain things is usually how things are. The easiest explaination of this whole show is that Jack had a very long, winding case of his "life flashing before his eyes" before he died, and made up the whole thing to come to terms with his spirituality and death – and die with divinity, a sense of belonging, a sense of accomplishment in his life..

The only two things I liked about the finale – getting to see Kate in her little black dress and stiletto heels at the concert, and that great classic Ford Bronco that Jack got to drive while residing in "Limbo-land".

When Christian stated "some died before, some after" i think he was talking figuratively about souls on the island, not necessarily the people on flight 815. Christian never alluded to the people in the church only, so the idea that the island was some sort of "purgatory" could ring true. Oh and Frank, anyone ever tell you that you need to take a percocet or something? Less caffeine man.

The Sideways world is seriously flawed! It was created by the souls of the "main" characters longing to be together in the afterworld, right? When did they do this? Obviously not when they were alive or they would all be aware of it. So they did it when they were dead. And this means that they did it after Hurley died which could have been 1000 years since Boone died. So when did they have time to go through all the things they went through like Jin getting shot etc.? and why are they not aware they are dead in the sideways world? Don't get me wrong, I loved this whole show. But being honest, it seems to me that the writers were given the directive to wrap this show up and they did it in probably the only way they could. By concentrating on the BIG picture and giving up on all the "threads" of the first 5 seasons. Which is cheating a little, although I am not so hung up on it as many. I will accept it, but only on the condition that somewhere down the line ABC continues with "LOST: The reign of Hurley" in which it comes to light that the Corporation behind DHARMA has been manipulating things and were really behind the Smoke Monster etc. and are after the secret of eternal life. They have captured Richard and forced him back to the Island to gain the secret. Hurley has to gain the aid of, wait for it, WALT and AARON (maybe even Sawyer, Desmond and Kate) to help protect the Island from them. Now that would be something.

I feel bad for lost fans they watched for 6 seasons and get a turd at the end and they loved it, wow these shows really deliver nothing and people like it I just don't know what passes for entertainment anymore.

Michael, why to you find it hard to believe that the island wasn't purgatory? It doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means that the whole purpose of the island experience was redemption. The flash back was to give the view information abut the flawed people on the island. If you can believe that the sideways time frame wasn't exactly earthly, then why not the island experience? BTW, I thought Christian to Jack that his experience on the island was the most important time he spent. He didn't say real, as far as I remember. I have to go back and look at that again.

No one should have expected a "tidy" wrap up of 6 years of questions. One thing is for certain. Christian Shephard said to Jack "some died before you and some died after you." They DID NOT all die on the plane. Watch the show again. I, for one, thought it was very well done.

To those who say, "life's about the journey, not the destination," and "You don't always get all the answers in life" – this was not life, it was TV. Many things were revealed. Many things were not. I loved the show, but interpretation, on a broadcast TV show??? Many watchers can't do that and probably should not have to do that in order to enjoy a TV show. The ending was iffy at best, except to the superfans who would have been happy no matter what the ending was.

Hmmm, I think maybe some people did not understand what Christian told Jack at the end......took me a little while to let it all sink in. He said everyone dies eventually. I agree with what alot of people said; it was beautiful. There is something comforting knowing that after you die you meet up with those persons who so greatly impacted your life. All the answers of the island did not need to be answered. In my opinion; we are left to interpret what WE think the islands secrets are/were. What is the bright light, really? How did the others get there? etc etc.......I enjoyed the finale and 2 days later am still thinking about it....contemplating it....enjoying the thought of meeting all those who impact my life when its my time. A comforting thought, for me at least. Cheers All!

People can sit here and argue until their blue in the face whether the people died in the crash or not, but one thing is for certain. It must be a hell of a series to be talked about like this for days after the finale. I for one think that Lost was a good, original series, and (like Sopranos), the ending was left up to interpretation somewhat. Christian answered some, but not all, of the questions.

I found the finale to be somewhat disappointing. The thing about 'Lost' that makes it special is the mystery. The writers answered too many questions in the episodes and seasons leading up to the finale. The two and a half hours could have been devoted to answering many of those questions. However I believe that overall it was one of the best dramas in television history. The show distinguished itself in many ways. We probably new the characters from 'Lost' better than the characters from any show ever put on television. The drama, action, and emotion was unmatched.

The debate that's happening here is why intelligent television is so hard to find: the television viewing public just isn't smart.

Yes, the events of the island happened. If you weren't smart enough to get that, Christian flat-out told you at the end.

No, the island was not purgatory, so no, the creators did not lie. Every event and alternate timeline with the exception of the "sideways" universe was real.

Aaron was a baby for the same reason that everyone was the same age as they were portrayed on the show. It gave the scene clarity. The definition of an afterlife is the absence of physical form, so the way you look is malleable.

And finally, the wreckage of the plane was iconic for the show and was shown in silence at the end as as (quite moving) point of repose and reflection NOT an Easter Egg to the idiots who still contend that everyone died in the crash.

If everyone has such a hard time comprehending this show, be ready for ten more seasons of Two and a Half Men....

believe that the island was an allegory for life, in this case specifically Jack's life. Every man is tested throughout his life and each of us has a smoke monster. I believe Smokie represented fear, confusion anger and all the negative emotions we try to defeat. Maybe it took the persona of Locke for Jack because he was unable to surgically fix Locke. Jack was a fixer in life and failure was a huge fear for him. Every person on the island was someone who was important to Jack in some way. They each were also being tested by the island of "life". The test is a lifelong battle. The "sideways" world, as Jack's father said, was created by them to find each other on the other side and to reflect and remember before moving on to the next plane of existence, whatever we believe that to be. He also said there is no "now" in that place so when the others such as Ben, Ana Lucia, or Daniel are ready, they will be join the group at that same moment of enlightenment. I believe questions were left unanswered on purpose. We all have questions in life that we must find our own answers to and some of them we may never answer... or at least not in this existence.

Mags, I was not happy with the ending, but I'm not a writer so I can't say for sure what I wanted to happen. I have often thought of watching Lost as reading a book. I have read books where I did not expect the ending but still liked it. That's the writer's job – to satisfy the reader, even if the ending is unexpected. Otherwise, who's going to buy his books? I do not believe the writers on Lost fulfilled that role...and had plenty of time with which to do it. I think that theory is proven by all the discussion on these boards. I wish the limbo/purgatory/sideways never happened and that some stayed on the island and some left. Simple, I know, but I'm not a writer.

I quit...I'm done...with posts like Andrew's there it's obvious we are dealing with morons here. No thought. That part was clearly spelled out.

In contrast to Donna's statement about selling her TV's, I'm right there...but for different reasons. How can I trust any show not to pull this sort of crap any more? No wonder nobody watches V or Flash Forward any more. We don't want to get driven into that same tree again and again. I give up.

Writers write for $$$$ and couldn't care less what we want. It's all about them and stroking their own egos. They moved on mentally to another project and just phoned it in for the last season completely. They wouldn't have been feverishly writing so late in the season if that weren't the case they were just trying to get it over with, and hadn't previously thought their way through the ending.

They lied...get over it. They may have had the ending scene all along, but after starting, it seems to me they should have made adjustments to create a whole story, not just a beginning and an end.

Seasons 2-5 could be entirely dumped and you'd now be able to get the whole thing down easily. None of it mattered.

I can't watch any more series shows...they ruined them. Pheh....Hollywood sucks...and damned near everything from there has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

My comment was cut but this was left??? What was wrong with my comment CNN??? What's the point of reading comments and taking the time to write your own if it's not gonna get published for some "mysterious" reason.

I am not leaning one way or another, but I do have to ask those that are saying that everything was spelled out during Christians talk with Jack. Since when have the writers of LOST come out and gave a straight answer? I mean, really? The last 5 minutes of the series is when the only straight answer is given? You could come to many outcomes of what happened depending on how you saw the show, which was the beauty of the show.

I didn't get through all the posts, but no one seems to mention the last shot during the credits. The plane wreckage was on the beach, no people around... that, to me, would seem to imply that everyone died in the initial plane crash.

I am still struggling with the whole sideways flashes being everyones purgatory or redemption. I can see Sawyers, Ben's and Lockes because they were helping people. But Kate was still a criminal, Sayid was still a murderer, and Jin became a murderer also, how is this redemption? Maybe I'm thinking too hard, but if everyone was living a better more productive life in the sideways flashes then it would make more sense to me. And if they all chose this as their place to meet after death, why did they need Desmond to make them recognize each other? My head is now hurting!!!

I had to watch it twice to understand it. Jacks father told you everything you needed to know when he said "everyone dies sometime, some before you, some after" which means, he (Jack) just died, while others had died before, others after, everything happened, island, home, etc.
they were just waiting for Jack to move on....

There were some things I really liked about the final season, but overall, I think the show went over the same cliff as Smokey did some time ago, abandoning science for mythos and religion. It always seems to me, though, that those who believe in religion really don't want anyone to contradict their little happy world. I gave up caring about that years ago.

My big thing here, and it's really just too bad for the writers, is that they could have really made themselves ledgends on the order of Tolkien if they did this right. They bowed and kowtowed to whatver powers that decided to make things revolve around non-science, and abandon continuity for simple "story telling" as they say. Maybe everybody from Kansas finally got to them...I don't know. But by doing so, alienated anyone who does not have a religious ideology. That, after promising not to do so. Tolkien told a story too...but in such depth and intricacy that it's still around DECADES after. Do you really think Lost will be around in our minds for much longer? It surely could have been. These guys initially went at this like it was a revolution in TV...and it genuinely was. It seems to me that they decided to concede the fight halfway through and just gave up. They kept on marketing themselves though as if they had kept up the fight.

They not only wrecked it for this show (for me anyway), but also wrecked my ability to trust them or other writers to follow through on anything. Promises mean nothing. Commitment means nothing...the American way. The commercial-fest really solidified my feeling that they sold out to the highest bidder at $9Million a click. Unfortunately I feel like I was sold a backgammon board with only white pieces. How can I trust them when they say the DVD's will have more answers? How can I trust other shows (like Fringe) that just won't end up with the same nonsense at the end? This applies to any non-self-contained serialized show. It was no wonder that Flash Forward got the axe and V isn't doing well. We can't trust they aren't going to drive us into that same tree.

I thank them for not filling our ears with fake British accents like every other Hollywood writer/producer lately (including 80% of commercials now) to make things sound more cool and trendy.

I really can't see myself following another serialized show. How can I? How can anyone? We were SOOOOOO led down the golden path that many of us will never want to start down that same road again. Someone should print out all of both of these threads and mail them to Cuse and Lindelof. I haven't got time nor the connections to likely get them in front of anyone who cares. I can only show my sentiment via a thread such as this (and a big thank you for hosting it...really!) and by how I spend my dollars. DVD's, bobbleheads, t-shirts, and that sort of thing will not be a part of my collections as I had once had a pretty good chance that I would have bought.

Kelso (70's show) says it best...BURN!!!! The Who says it as to my next sentiment as to getting burned: "Won't get fooled again."

I can't belive it's over – I have been a devoted fan since day one. I really loved the finale it was very exciting & I was very emotional. But having the cast sitting in a church ? These writers were amazing all of these years why oh why did they have to just dry up at the end ????
Maybe they are waiting for that big movie deal !

Still it is better to have loved Lost than never to have loved at all !

They all died in the plane crash. That was evident when they panned out to the scene of the crash and all the debris was still lying there. Remember, the "survivors" used the debris to make "shacks" and utilized the luggage and stuff as "survival gear". all that stuff was still on the beach. At first I thought the ending sucked, but after hearing the interviews with the cast and stuff, I guess it wasn't a bad ending after all. Just a tad predictable.

I like the fact that alot of the mysteries werent resolved. It forces the viewers, us, to fill in the blanks with our imagination. And that makes it personal to us. It makes the show a part of us.

Would I have liked an explanation of the statue, the egyptian stuff, "Mother", so on and so on. Sure. Wouldve been cool. But then thats information that someone else gave you and once the show was over, it would have been over.

The way it was ended, in your imagination, LOST goes on and is part of you. Brilliant. The show engaged the viewer in every episode right up to "The End".

I have watched every episode, start to finish. I loved the ending but am still so confused. What was Charles Widmore doing with the Island? Why send his goons there to kill Ben, and the Others? How did Jacob pinpoint his "candidates" and why did he do that? He met that at some point in his life – how did he get off the island to do that? Why them? There are certainly so many other people whose lives are flawed. I just want the basic premise of the show explained to me by someone, please! 🙂 Both Jacob and Smokey (love that name) were born to a woman, who was slain by another woman who was the caretaker of the "light" force. How did she get there, and why did it near caretaking? My thought is that this island is the portal to Heaven or the afterlife. The choices you made allowed you either to move on to Heaven, go to purgatory to fix any of your life mess-ups or sins, and you joined MIB and helped him get stronger.
Any thoughts? Love your comments and keep them coming!

I really liked the finale. It was very nice to share the emotional punch the characters felt when they recalled their lives on the island and were reunited with their loved ones. For some reason, the scene with Charlie, Claire and Kate hit me the hardest.

My only gripe is that the end scene with Jack staggering through the jungle to find his final resting place seemed a bit forced. I know the writers had this scene in mind from the very beginning, but I couldn't help but be reminded of the old man from Monty Python. You know, the guy who struggles through so many obstacles simply to say "it's"...

Lost was originally meant to be a purgatory that was the island itself. However, because many fans figured out this from early on, the producers tried to switch things up so that the show would be less predictable.

The losties leaving the island was NEVER a part of the original plot, nor was the whole "candidate" thing. It was a way for the producers to try and throw the fans "off of their scent".

The original plot was that all the people on the flight died during the crash and the island was an in-between of heaven and hell. It was on this island that a lostie could confess their sins/show self-sacrafice and be saved (i.e. Boone) or justify their sins and not repent, therefore being dammed (i.e. Mr. Ecko).

But since fans figured that all out, this left the producers...ironically, "lost". The producers tried to change things up to keep the fans interest up because they knew the biggest reason the fans liked the show was its unpredictability. Therefore, the losties NOW never actually died in the crash but were alive on the island and they created that screwy "sideways" timeline and messed with a whole bunch of other things trying to keep the show fresh.

Jacob was originally meant to be the "angel" of the island trying to lead the losties to salvation, while Smokie was the "demon" of the island trying to get the losties condemned. The changing of the plot made defining Jacob and Smokie difficult for the producers and that is why both of those characters are largely left ambiguious.

However, by doing this, the producers caused Lost to be an ADHD version of what it was originally meant to be. They (the producers) should have just stuck with the original plot of the island being purgatory and just ran with it.

I haven't been able to read all of the posts, so if someone already said all of this, I'm sorry! Also, if someone can help me figure this out (without calling me a moron and typing in all caps) that would be great!

The reason why I thought they had been dead the entire time was because of that last shot, where they show the plane wreckage. I understand the view that says the island is real, the flash sideways is really a type of purgatory, etc- up until that last shot. My friend keeps saying that the wreckage has been there all along, through the entire island time line. However, if I remember correctly (and maybe I don't- I will have to re-watch season 1), they had cleaned up that wreckage and used it for shelter, to build the raft, etc, and remained on that same beach in case they were to be rescued. So when they showed that final shot of the wreckage, what I thought they were implying is that they died in Oceanic 815, and that wreckage has been on the beach for some 3 years or so. I also understand that this view complicates things even more by presenting more questions, but I don't think it means that the island wasn't real- it was real, just in a different realm. So there would be 4 realms- the "real" world (aka the world where I am typing this post), the island, the purgatory world (previously thought to be a flash sideways), and beyond (heaven). The characters, though dead in our world, were alive on the island and knew each other- so for them, it was very real. I admit this is kind of a lame theory, but I'm just trying to make sense of that last shot.

Also, I did watch closely (twice) and heard what Christian said about everything happening to Jack being "real," but like I said above, maybe it is real in a different realm or something. Anyway, I just wanted to share why some people, myself included, interpreted them to have died on Oceanic 815- it was that shot of the wreckage. Maybe someone has a better explanation for that shot, and maybe my friend is right- that it has been there all along, and they never cleaned it up.

And to everyone who thinks we are lame for watching 6 seasons of a show and then discussing/debating it in depth- we just think it's fun.

I've watched every episode since the first show, and I've been a fan the whole time...yet I still have a somewhat empty feeling after the series finale – not because they didn’t end it properly, but because they didn’t answer everything I think they should have. Hopefully those answers will be on the boxset when the series is released as a whole on dvd and some sort of special. I’m very satisfied at the way they ended the show – which was quite brilliant, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. As we now know, the candidates were brought to the island by Jacob, but, how did Jacob know he needed to bring them? Could he predict the future somehow? Who built the statue? What's the significance of the Numbers? Who built the ancient time wheel? ... and many more. The last season did fill in a lot of the blanks, as well as the pre-final episode with the writers, I just wish they would have provided more answers. Those, I guess small questions, are the only thing’s that left me feeling kind of blah about the whole series, other than that, it was really fantastic.

One of the best moments was the final shot of Jack closing his eye – not only because it was emotional and showing him pass on, but how it really closed the show like they opened it. In the very first episode of the series it begins with Jack opening his eyes, near Vincent, in the bamboo with Christian's white tennis shoe nearby, and an injury to his abdomen. The ending in the final episode has Jack with the same type of injury on his abdomen, the shoe in the bamboo, and finally his eye closing, all of it tied in nicely...that ending was absolutely perfect, I really don’t think they could have done it better.

My interpretation of what happened on Lost-
The island was Purgatory, and it was a battle of Good Vs Evil (Jacob vs. Smokey). The flashbacks were their individual stories of how/why they were alone and why they needed to be redeemed (making them candidates). The flash forwards was a look into the future based on their temptations, this is why Jack knew he needed to go back so badly. The flash sideways is an alternate reality, limbo, where time stands still and does not run in line with the real world and this was their redemption. Since limbo was timeless, they could all meet there once they passed on(died) from the real world, regardless of when in real-world time they died. As you saw, Jack, Hurley, Ben ect. all died at different times to us the viewers. But since limbo is timeless, they were all able meet at the same time once they passed on. The flash sideways was a vision to the future at no specific time once they had all died.

This was truly a great story from start to finish and I’m glad I never gave up on it no matter how confused I was lol.

I realize that not every single teeny tiny mystery needs to be explained but I am bothered that they just completely dropped some pretty big things... things that were almost themes... like the importance of Walt or the importance of Aaron. Earlier in the series a huge production was made of the fact that Claire HAD TO be the one to raise Aaron and then it was just dropped. Never explained. I'm not bothered enough by any of this to say I no longer like Lost or I hated the finale but I think it's disappointing considering how carefully planned out the entire series was supposed to have been.

Diane, why did you comment then? And why are you on a board where clearly the discussion is about watching the show? I learned the word "trolling" from these "Lost" boards, and I wish I didn't know it.

People who say that the sideways time period was purgatory don't know what purgatory is. According to the church, and the dictionary, purgatory is a place for souls to make satisfaction for past sins and so become fit for heaven., a place or state of temporary suffering or misery. The island was obviously their place to suffer, in order to atone for their sins, and become suited for heaven or an afterlife. The confusion is that in sideways time, everyone seemed to have overcome their demons and were living good respectable lives. So everyone thinks this is purgatory???? Sideways time could more be thought of as limbo, not the same as purgatory. However it may not fit the definition of limbo either. But one def. of limbo is an intermediate or transitional place or state. They could have been in limbo in sideways time, waiting for all who they suffered with on the island to be redeemed and ready to go to "heaven" or where ever they were going when Christian opened the church doors and the light shone in. I am disappointed that more questions weren't answered, but I enjoyed the show anyway.

Here's my theory: They weren't dead on the island. Everything that happened to them did happen. However, each one of them did die, as Jack's father eluded to at the end of the show, some before, some after. At the beginning of the season, the island was shown under water, so the island did sink eventually after the 'light' was put out.

Jack died after he came out of the cave; Hurley and Ben (and others left on the island) died when the island sank. The plane that everyone else was on obviously did not make it far from the island before it probably crashed and they all died onboard.

The 'sideways' view of things wasn't actually sideways. Their spirits did not accept that they were dead, so together they 'created' that 'reality' to find each other in. When they and the ones they loved 'reconnected', they finally realized or accepted that they could pass on to the next life.

For the record, the Island is NOT purgatory!!!! This was made clear by Christian and the shots on the beach as the credits rolled.

The wreckage was old and rusted, indicating it was NOT the Ajira flight as some have suggested. Also, in one of the shots, on the left, you can clearly see the blue tarp of Sawyer's tent flapping in the breeze. The camp was deserted because they finally left.

Now, that being said, I get the ending, I like the ending, but I don't love the ending. It did almost feel like a "cop-out" of sorts.

I'll tell you how I would have ended it. The reunion in the church was a great scene, but I would have had Jacob leading the way, not Jack's dad (although he would have been there for the reunion with Jack). And in the final scene, Locke would have returned to the island to be the caretaker for the rest of time. Everyone would have hugged Locke and then he would have exited the church from the opposite door from the door of light.

SCENE:
DAYLIGHT – The beach. We follow a man's footprints in the sand. Past the rusting wreckage of a plane. The prints of a dog join those of the man. As the camera rises up from the footprints we see a point of land in the distance and a man and his dog stand there, beneath a palm tree, looking out to sea. As we get closer the man turns and begins to walk toward the jungle. It is Locke. Vincent, the dog, trots beside him.

CLOSEUP: Locke gives his trademark smile and then disappears into the jungle. Just as we FADE TO WHITE we hear the SOUND of a jet approaching. Clearly, it sounds as if the engines are failing.

Curious...if all the folks in the Church were dead and ready to move on..why was Aaron there?? He was supposed to be "safe" back in LA. Was it because he was the only one born on the island?? So his side ways world was at the concert getting born again?? He was too young to have done something wrong to redeem himself for. Thats the part I get stuck thinking about.........ideas?

So why exactly was Daniel Faraday's mom walking around purgatory getting all ticked off at Desmond for gathering the castaways for their trip to heaven. What is her freaking problem? Maybe she didn't want him to take her son to heaven while she is stuck in purgatory for killing him. Or maybe she was not real and was created for Daniel's mind and he knew to create her as a grumpy and bitter old woman? It seems kind of weird to create NPCs in purgatory that pull that much aggro.

I think it proved that the viewers knew all along that the island was purgatory, even though the writers had to deny it. I wish they had explained the alternate world where the plane didn't crash. Where did Jack's son come from? I think they could have done much better than they did. Heck it would have been a better ending if Jack & Ben were left sitting on the island – the new Jacob and new MIB – just waiting for the next batch of survivors.

I watched every episode of Lost – every second, actually – and I think I "get it." I loved the show and looked forward to it and missed it during the long time off between seasons. That said, I did not like the ending. Imagine that – human beings with differing opinions. All the name-calling and condescension by the "superfans" is ridiculous and sad.

I understand what everyone here is saying and from a writing standpoint maybe thats what they wanted... Religious Christians to feel satisfied that there was a christian theme to the ending, and eastern religions to see the theme of reincarnation to the ending, and romantics to be happy that lovers "connected" with each other again, and action oriented indivituals to feel vindicated that the battle between Jack/Locke was played out... but to me its poor concept because the writers should express their views and not try to satisfy everyone. If they had there would have still been people happy and other people disappointed but at least there would have been justification instead of feeling like they just tried to please everyone instead of really ending the story.

You don't know how glad i am to finally see it ended... from the first show i found it long.... if the cast on Gilligans island made it out with little resources, how can, in this day and age a group of LOST people get stuck in the middle of no where and not get out... I'M SO HAPPY IT'S OVER !!!!... it shows people have nothing better to do than slap their rear on a couch eat chips and watch " LOST " while they turn into couch potatoes.......get out there and enjoy life !!!!!

I did notice Jack didn't say the special prayer for Hurleys drink actually- I think that he didn't because it was all a mental confidence thing he wanted to give Hurley. I think that the drink didn't do anything but have a great placebo effect- just my opinion 😉

Well after all these gut wrenching years, LOST is finally over...Yet many questions remain unanswered! The potential for a great finale was there, but an enormous egg was laid instead! This mega flop of a finale will haunt all those die-hard fans out there who knew deep in their hearts they expected more at the end, yet sadly they will never admit it out of some kind of self-inflicted fanfare loyalty!

The concept at the end was great, but it could've been emulated better, but instead it was mutilated. Look, the fact is that too many plots were made up as they went along, there is no way that they could've kept up or made sense of every single character and their personal stories.

In the end when the rubber meets the road, LOST was a great show for the 1st 4 seasons, but alas in the last 2 seasons it took a nose dive faster than Oceanic Fight 815!....I know, I know....It's only a TV show.....Just had to get that off my chest....LOL!

Paul G summarized my feelings very well about the show's ending, well said Paul!!!
"They couldn't answer all the mysteries, because it's very clear now that they just added them throughout the series to keep it interesting, without caring about how it applies to the bigger picture, of which they had no clue. They knew how it ended: with them all in the church and Jacks eye closing, but beyond that they had no concept of what the Island was, or Jacob, or Smokey, or anything. So now in rewatching the series, instead of saying, "wow, it's cool how they tied that into the ending!" Or, "Wow, I can't believe they had that planned from all the way back then!" We're left counting the number of inconsistencies and dropped premises. I'm sorry, but when you make such a big deal about Aaron being raised by Claire or 'terrible things will happen" then say the psychic was a fraud (why would fraudulent psychic give her money back, stalk her for weeks and pay for a ticket to America??) that IS a cop out; when you introduce a major plotline about infertility then drop it completely, that's bad writing. When you introduce the concept of "RULES" then not only explain how they were set in place but why they're there, but randomly break them just to suit your needs to progress the story, that's nothing but laziness. Why couldn't Ben kill Whitmore in his bedroom? why were the 'rules' changed when Keamy killed Alex? Why was Flocke randomly able to kill/not kill people? For that matter, why, if MIB was trapped in Jacobs cabin, was he seen all over the island as smokey or other apperitions before the ashline was broken? Argh, I love the show, but it's because I love it that I'm so frustrated with the recklessness of the writing."

A lot of you need to go back and watch again...Jack's Dad explains it all clear as a bell in the end...they did not die in the plane crash. The island happened. The finale was brilliant...a true homage to the wonderful "lost souls" that were the characters. I loved it. It was not supposed to be about answers to all the questions. It has always been, and will always be about the characters. Don't get hung up on every tiny detail or you will miss the true meaning.

Some of you get it, thankfully (excellent analysis, Erik). Those of you who don't? Let go. You are overthinking this.

OK....

Once upon a time, there was an island. The Island was the Source of all the spiritual power in the world. Controlled, the world flourished. Uncontrolled the world would be consumed. Thus, the Island always has an immortal, magical protector.

When the protector of the Island, wishing to turn over his reins, 'brings' the Losties to the Island. He chooses flawed people; lost souls. Througout the story, the key Losties find redemption for their souls in the actions taken to help save the Island (and thus, the world). These people (who correspond to 'numbers' on Jacobs list) have done this together. Some escape the Island to live out their mortal lives. Some die. Two remain as new protectors of the Island.

At the end of their lives, they move to this limbo (the Flash Sideways), where they live their 'corrected' lives, from the point of when their Oceanic Flight WOULD have crashed. Finally, when the last person (probably the temporarily immortal Hurley) would have died, they awaken to the realization that they are dead.

Knowing this, but having found peace with the help of their fellow Losties in 'life', they can collectively 'let go' and accept their deaths. They move on to the Afterlife, as one big happy (redeemed) family.

Clearly you have to be intelligent to appreciate LOST and how it was written. In no way is this show a waste of time. It needs to be understood on a level that takes a little complex thinking, reasoning and interpretation. Like life not everything has a clear cut answer. However, this show did an excellent job of wrapping up. It provided just enough response and clarity to afford me a greater understanding of what occurred over the six years that I watched the show. I cried, laughed and absolutely have reflected on my own immortality. My hope is that in my death I have as glorious a gathering with those that are important to me as Jack had. Amen.

I couldn't disagree more with the people in the video clip. The show ending was a major disappointment to me. I watched the show for its mystery and was so looking forward to the resolution of those mysteries. However, the show ended like a sappy soap opera. Why couldn't more stuff be explained? It makes no sense and I've never been more disappointed with a TV show in my life. It had such potential but in the end flopped.

Dont understand why people think they died when the plane originally crashed ... Why would ALL of the people be in his "heaven" if they died in the original crash. Of course he did not die until after everything in the 6 seasons happened. They all meant something to him that's why they were in his heaven. Maybe Ben didnt make to his "heaven" because that's not where he was meant to be that's really all I can come up because there is no time so he would have died eventually right ? Whether it was before or after Jack he would have made it eventually. BEST SHOW EVER & I WILL MISS IT GREATLY !!!

The people who think they were dead the whole time, or that it was a flash of Jack's life before his eyes, I agree with ^^^ to go back and actually watch it. If he didn't know and love everyone on the island, why would they all be waiting for him to cross over? No, the events on the island happened (besides, if he was just dying from the plane crash why would he not be wearing his original suit?).

I think we'll never have a show quite like this again—or at least for some time to come. Love it or hate it, it has brought out fans and detractors in droves to comment on boards like this one, theorizing and analyzing the minutia that Darlton provided us with each week.

For six years, I have faithfully watched LOST, and don't regret the experience, even when the show hit a few lows. I love what it has been to me. It was a common interest and discussion point for my husband and I. It exposed me to new ideas and learnings I chose to research. Did all the small stuff matter in the end? Not really. But it was a great ride to go on. Thank you, LOST. I will miss you, and whether you will admit it or not, you will, too.

grrr the only thing ruined for me about LOST is the idiots yelling "nailed it from season 1 – they're all dead" gah, idiots! LOL I thought the finale was a moving love letter to the past 6 years, I was in tears, I was elated, I was stumped, I was confused but overall satisfied! What else can y ou ask for in a tv show! I always wanted a happy ending for all my 'friends' on the island, and the producers gave me the ULTIMATE in happy endings, in final final endings lol, I love that their connection was so profound, they all found each other in the end to move on together – ok i 'm choking up typing this !!! amazing!!!

To a non-fan.. LOST seems to be this eras "Seinfeld".. a program about 'nothing'. Each episode was crafted well, to provide drama of sorts, but like a soap opera, nothing was ever resolved, and worse, little 'sense' could be made of anything.

LOST was an "action" mystery adventure with zero 'plot'... merely hints at a 'possible' plot. This would send all the fans into a frenzy of speculation at what convoluted bizarre reason(s) could exist to explain what nobody could figure out.

The only thing worse than watching LOST is listening to fans (I know a few) try to figure out what the whole series was 'about'. It's all "Why did this happen.??" "Why did this person do this..??" Somehow, in todays TV viewership, this is 'entertaining'.

Everyone must have more time on their hands than me.... I've got better things to do, read, watch, etc....

Not that complicated. They were alive at all times including flashforwards and flashbacks until this final season in the flash sideways. They were even alive the whole time on the Island (until they died). The sideways flashes that we have been seening this season is actually when they are dead.

The one that bugs me is that when the island's source was uncorked, MIB lost his powers and Richard began aging. Seems pretty clear that the island's magic was turned off. However, it was during this time that Jack had Hurley drink the magic water that would turn him into a Guardian. Why did this still work when nothing else did?

Some of the unsolved mysteries that are being brought up, can be determined, if you think.
Example: Pregnancy did not happen on the island because Jacob needed the females he brought to the island to remain canidadates. Remember why Kate was crossed off. Becomming a mother did not preclude them from being a candidate, but it certainly played on Jacob's mind.

It's funny how many people stick to their interpretations - that everyone has been in purgatory the entire six seasons, or that Jack imagined everything in the moments before he died - despite the ending making it clear that everything on the island was real. Why watch a show if you're just going t make up your own show in your head?

Jack's father explained everything. He said the people were real. He explained that they were all dead "because everyone dies sometime." He went on to say that some died before Jack and some died long after. Thus, they didn't all die in the plane crash. It happened just as we saw. Many survived the crash, some died before Jack (Boone, etc.), and some died long after (Sawyer, Kate, Hugo, etc.) Jack even sees the plane carrying Kate and the others fly overhead as he's dying. What exactly do you think that was about?

For those who think Jack imagined everything in the moments before he died.... I don't suppose you noticed that when he laid down and died at the end, he wasn't wearing the suit he was wearing on the plane?

The ending has been explained. It's no one's fault but your own if you insist on feeling like you were cheated. The show wasn't a dream, and it wasn't purgatory.

They couldn't answer all the mysteries, because it's very clear now that they just added them throughout the series to keep it interesting, without caring about how it applies to the bigger picture, of which they had no clue. They knew how it ended: with them all in the church and Jacks eye closing, but beyond that they had no concept of what the Island was, or Jacob, or Smokey, or anything. So now in rewatching the series, instead of saying, "wow, it's cool how they tied that into the ending!" Or, "Wow, I can't believe they had that planned from all the way back then!" We're left counting the number of inconsistencies and dropped premises. I'm sorry, but when you make such a big deal about Aaron being raised by Claire or 'terrible things will happen" then say the psychic was a fraud (why would fraudulent psychic give her money back, stalk her for weeks and pay for a ticket to America??) that IS a cop out; when you introduce a major plotline about infertility then drop it completely, that's bad writing. When you introduce the concept of "RULES" then not only explain how they were set in place but why they're there, but randomly break them just to suit your needs to progress the story, that's nothing but laziness. Why couldn't Ben kill Whitmore in his bedroom? why were the 'rules' changed when Keamy killed Alex? Why was Flocke randomly able to kill/not kill people? For that matter, why, if MIB was trapped in Jacobs cabin, was he seen all over the island as smokey or other apperitions before the ashline was broken? Argh, I love the show, but it's because I love it that I'm so frustrated with the recklessness of the writing.

OMG!!!! Please, I am begging all of you to go back and re-watch the entre last season, especially the last 9 episodes as almost EVERYTHING is explained!!! There is no debate, theory, etc! IT IS SHOWN WHAT IS WHAT!!!!!!

Apparently you all have the retention span of a gnat and are seriously, SERIOUSLY making my head hurt!!!!

This is the brilliance of the Lost writers. Because they will not give the answers and leave many of the questions open to interpretation, the fan debate will last for a long time. ie...wait for the box set, movies, spin-offs. We all have differet conclusions. Some view things literally. Some view things with spirituality. Some think we are just plain nuts for being fans. How many TV shows have ended with the fans debating the real meanings of it like Lost? How long will the debte last? I think it will continue in some form for a long time or until the writers let us know what they really meant.

I just watched it last night, and I have to say that was one of my biggest wastes of time ever. I am so glad the show is gone for good. NEVER to return. Hell, the commercials were more interesting. Especially the iPad one.

at first I didn't like the ending – but now that I've thought about it – I'm satisfied. I don't understand much about purgatory – so here is my question: If the sideways world was purgatory and they are in limbo – what does that mean to those around them? For example, Jack operates on Locke where they re-connect... does that mean that everyone in the entire hospital is in purgatory? Is the building in purgatory? When Sayid and Shannon re-connected.. was the bar real? Not u nderstanding this aspect.

OR, and I know most disagree with this theory, but I think there is a case to be made for it,

2) They DO die in the initial plane crash. The island experiences ARE ‘real to them’, they are in Limbo (their spirits/alternate life on the island) and are redeeming themselves through their choices, love for one another, sacrifices, etc... There is no ‘real’ / ‘now’ as Christian Shepherd said, Jacob and MIB represent good and evil, and the ‘non-survivors’ need to make choices/free-will to move on. In the on island events, they make sacrifices for one another, and the “island” rewards them with afterlife. Again, Christian Shepperd shepherds them through. The camera panning on Jack’s eye opening at beginning of the series corresponds to the closing if his eye at the end, the island experiences are their journey, redemption, ability to love and sacrifice, in the ‘time’ of their deaths. Remember, ‘time’ is relative.

Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if you are right. At the end, Jack dies and watches a plane fly over. Which plane is that? It can't be the one that just took off because it would have been long gone. Then, the credit "LOST" comes up and they show the wreckage. Is the wreckage perhaps the original wreckage and they ARE ALL DEAD? Because Jack asks and Christine Shepard says in the end, and listen closely when you replay it:

Jack asks: Are you real?
Christian: Well I hope I am, you're real, I'm real and EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON THE ISLAND WAS REAL. So, Christian is confirming that He and Jack are "Real", but they are dead yes? So when he said, "what happened on the island was real", maybe again, it's up for interpretation that to THEM it was REAL.

I watched the finale again last night, and it made much more sense then trying to catch everything on the first viewing. It really was a wonderful ending. Kudos to JJ and the folks at Bad robot.

The story make perfect sense (!) if you keep the island story and the sideways story separate. The show really had two endings...the ending of each of the two storylines was perfect.

Island (real story): Hugo, Ben and Des are left on the island. Ben advises Hugo he should come up with a different better way to run things than how Jacob did. Frank,Miles, the newly aging Richard, Claire, Sawyer and Kate all escape on the plane. Jack dies after saving the island. The scene of his laying next to Vincent, looking up at the sky and seeing the plane fly away–then smile–was poetic!

Sideways: This was where the real twist of the finale occurs. It was not the losties lives playing out as if the plane never crashed–which it what we all thought thru the season. It was limbo, where all the losties were searching/waiting for each other after death–regardless of when they died (whether shown on the storyline or after). They were searching for each other due to the weight of what they all went thru together on the island. Again, a very lovely and poetic ending.

My mother used to tell me some great scary stories when I was a kid. Her stories had the usual scary things in them, but they also had a weird kind of ending which left important parts out the end that made it much more of a lasting memory. What would happen to the widow after using part of her dead husband's intestine for sausages; forcing him to come back looking for his property?

That pretty much is Lost in my mind right now. The creators might have a complete idea of what happened, but in order to keep us bumbling about in the dark, they will not say. So Kudos, I love the ending, understood about 90% of what I saw, and about 10% of what was not seen. I'll remember this story forever, but you need more corpses next time.

People are posting comments about things that didn't even happen! Just making stuff up – it's crazy! A theory is one thing, but just making stuff up is another! They didn't all die in the plane crash, for crying out loud. That's nuts! Anyway, I will admit that it didn't end as I'd hoped, but it wasn't that bad. And it was classic "LOST" for the final scene to be a zoom-in of Jack closing his eye(s) – as they often zoomed in on eye(s) – as he died. ABC – IF YOU'RE READING THIS – IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU COULD ALLOW THE FANS TO WRITE IN AND ASK QUESTIONS, OR HAVE THE WRITERS ADDRESS SOME OF THE BIG MYSTERIES OF THE SHOW. THAT WAY, EVEN THOUGH THE SHOW DIDN'T ANSWER EVERYTHING, FANS COULD STILL BE SATISFIED WITH KNOWING THE TRUTH!!! or... WRITE A BOOK THAT ADDRESSES ALL OF THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. FANS COULD WRITE IN FOR A MONTH OR TWO, AND THEY COULD COVER ALL THE BASES. PLEASE....!

I was very dissappointed in the Finale. I was an avid fan of LOST (from the very beginning) and am very frastruated that very little was answered. I can't believe i stayed up to watch for nothing! Writers nevers answered the question why the island was there in the first place. i think in the end the writers, wrote themselves into a BIG HOLE and thought how the heck do we end this dragged out show!

1 – Total cop out on the writing. Yes, I buy the whole "they're dead, it's the afterlife" thing, but in a show filled with such brilliant nonsense, there could have been a much more creative answer to the overall question. Even if the little stuff went unanswered, there could have came up with something better...

2 – They did a great job turning Jack into a Christ figure. Self sacrifice for the greater good, specific wounds to the body, around the right age. Bravo..

3 – My theory of Faraday being something special to the end was kind of off track, but I was right in that he did play a role in the end.

4 – The fall of Smokey.. Shot in the back by Kate? Come on.. They turned off the island's powers for a few minutes so she could shoot him? Really? REALLY?? Give me a break.. He/WE deserved something a bit more interesting than that.

5 – I have a new theory about Smokey. I don't believe that the MIB (as in, the original brother of Jacob) was actually the smoke monster. I believe the smoke monster existed long before Jacob threw his brother down the hole. I believe Smokey lived in there because it was trapped on the island. When MIB went in, something broke and Smokey was let loose. It then assumed the form of the MIB, just as it assumed the form of Locke.

Clearly, this represented some amazing prescience on behalf of the writers. Obviously, it's all simply a metaphor for the hazards of offshore drilling! That liquid smoke monster can't be allowed to be uncorked and allowed to escape to the mainland (though it now has, and it is starting to wreak havoc).

Heck, there's even a well on the island! And Flocke was going for a top kill! OK, I'll stop.

Rick, I know that the producers of Lost are going to be devastated to lose you as a viewer. Um, now that the series has ended. Way to boycott.

I can not believe how many people are insisting on disregarding the actual answers given in the show in favor of their own interpretations. Did you watch the show? The writers gave the answers they wanted to give, in the way they wanted to give them. They are the writers; they get to pick the realities.

Deal with it.

And get over the church thing. That show was so not a Christian metaphor.

I quit watching after the first season. Why? My wife and I recognized it as Twin Peaks- another high brow show with no exit. We knew there was going to be no entertaining way out. Like the Matrix, it was full of interesting twists and turns but in the end, brrrrpppppp.

They didn't 'cram' religion down anyone's throat. LOL! Some of you are really overreacting. They also NEVER promised answers to every question. They promised 'answers'. Period. They gave 'em. Just because YOU didn't appreciate or 'like' those answers, doesn't make the show bad. The show was EXTREMELY different and wonderful in this time of re-hashed, re-done, copy-cat entertainment. I wish most of you were this upset when they produced a Bewitched movie...

all of the questions did not need answered because some were irrelevant. it was like watching a dream the entire 6 years and like some dreams, unexplainable.

when someone dies unexpectedly and tragically, their spirit does not realize it is time to cross over. that is what i think the last 6 years have been about because so much of what they went through was overwhelming and unexplainable. did anyone notice Ben did not cross over? does that leave an opening? the sideways side is what they and we would have liked to believe was really their lives when in reality their lives were like the original flashbacks. they had to come to terms with that before they could accept the fact that they were dead.

the greatest thing about Lost is we all have a different view and perspective of what REALLY happened. Good vs Evil, purgatory before heaven, wild unexplainable dreams that happen in a nano second, etc.

I have not seen one word about a set of characters that took up half a season and seem to have dissappeared in a mystery as great as Lost's finale...what ever happened to, and what was the whole point behind Mr. Ecko and his priest brother, the plane and all the drugs in the statuettes???

THEY WERE ALL DEAD BEFORE THEY GOT ON THE PLANE. Jacob brought them to the island because they were "Lost' and couldn't move on. The plane was just the vessel that made sense to them. The MIB wanted to return to the land of the living. Why else would the whole Lost cast move on together with people they've barely known instead of their lifelong loved ones?

Just throwing that out there since about any theory would fit this ending. haha

The_Mick, in the parallel world there was no "now" so Kate, Lapidus, Sawyer, Miles and Claire got off the island and lead their lives until they died. Hurley and Ben (#1 and #2) were left on the island as protectors and may have lived hundreds if not thousands of years like Jacob, and eventually died. Once everyone died, they were now all together in the sideways world where time had no meaning. That is why people could have died before or after Jack all arrived at the same time. If you don't believe me, go back and rewatch the church scene where Jack's father explains this to him.

So it all comes down to religion? I have been watching a religious show for 6 years? Why did they have to end in a church? This really annoys me. The concept of the ending is fine but ending by ramming a religious statement down my throat really really disappoints.

They didn't die in the plane crash. Let's reedit the last season in our heads: Let's cut out all the flash sideways and just follow the story on the island. Jack dies, his eyes close, fade to white, camera pulls back and we see Jack sitting on the airplane looking out the window and we are now watching the first flash sideways from this season. Does it make sense now?

How about Jack's fathers line "The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here." Jack didn't know any of them up to the point he was on the plane. He certainly didn't know Juliet as she wasn't even on the plane, yet she was there.

And to those complaining about some things not being answered: more things were answered during the series than you realize. Go to the Lostpedia and search for mysteries. Everything resolved or not is cleanly laid out and color coded.

To all the dissenters of the finale, I am curious to know what kind of an ending would have satisfied you? Someone standing at a podium doing a question and answer session? How many would still be left muttering about "a cop-out" because those answers didn't fit in with what they wanted? Given the scope of these 6 seasons, the multiple story facets, the millions of viewers with differing opinions, likes/dislikes, personal philosophies, I'd say the writers did a mighty fine job. My only complaint will be if Lost doesn't sweep the Emmys.

At first I gave the finale a 7 until I watched it for the 3rd time and most of the people who criticize the ending did not listen to Christian Shepperd at the end . Christian Shepperd answers all of the relevant questions when he is talking to Jack in the church. I now give the ending a 10+. I will miss this series. Great show.

I thought that it's pretty obvious that they did not die from the plane crash, as some of them did get to go back home and affect the events at home. The island is suppose to be the fountain of life, thus needed to be protected. And the candidates were brought here by jacob in a well planned plane crash to be selected to protect the island.

The "alternate" universe thing is the limbo world, the place people go to when they die on the island, the place they "dream" together until they are ready to move on.

As more time goes by and my brain re-works its way through events I'm becoming more satisfied with the end. Yes, there are unanswered questions about the island itself, it's original occupants, etc but overall I think they tied it up pretty neatly.

I'm left with the impression that aside from the flash sideways events were all real.

I'm still in debate about the smoke monster/MIB. It is certain he could not leave the island as he was. I assume when Jacob killed him and pushed his body into the light his soul became trapped there. This also being the reason nobody could kill him because there was not actually a physical person to kill. When the cork was removed he became mortal again so he could make a break for it. Had he not been killed I wonder what would have happened? Jacob insinuated the world as they knew it would cease to exist. But the entire time I was picturing an evil smoke monster freely roaming the world and NOT a mortal man. So in my mind this begs the question was Jacob actually worried about him leaving the island or just the events that would have to occur to facilitate his departure? If Jack had not replaced the "cork" would the island have merely sunk or would the whole world itself crumble? Did MIB have to die at all? From the flash sideways scenario I came to the slightly far-fetched conclusion that John Locke was still unable to pass since his body was being borrowed (even though not physically). I'll have to rewatch and see if people were re-awakened in the same order they died on the island.

Anyway, this thought process leaves me feeling better about the end....just trying not to think about the whole origins of the island and the temple and things like how the cork was constructed in the first place.

To those that are having problems seeing the flash sideways as a purgatory I think the problem lies in the fact that you are trying to make a fictional series fit your definition about what purgatory is. Christian said they created that place to meet again. I don't think you can try to make that fit into any Catholic definition of purgatory. It is what it is....no sense in attaching a name to it that you already have a preconceived notion about.

It's also laughable the obvious atheists that feel it has "Christian overtones" or that they were being preached to. There is such a hodgepodge of religions and philosophies presented in this FICTIONAL series and if anything it borrows from them as other works of fiction. One would think fundamentalists from those religions would get more bent out of shape than someone who doesn't believe in them. I don't think the writers are trying to convey a message here. It was pure and quite enjoyable entertainment.

There have been plenty of shows that are going the "mystery" route as Lost did. Like Flashforward & Happy Town either of these could be fantastic shows because of their ideas but due to crap writers one of these shows have been cancelled and another awaits it. I long for a show that I cant miss every week like Lost. I feel empty now and will miss it dearly.

This show is stupid. Good job America for falling for another lame JJ Abrams Waste of time production. Maybe everyone can go rent Cloverfield for a night to relive how sad and desperate our society is when searching for mindless entertainment.

Those of you Jedi Losties who keep saying those who didn't like the ending didn't get it need to go join those going into the light. I enjoyed the series and it was great entertainment. I didn't expect all of the answers as most television series do not get to set their own end date in advance. The fact that the writers all knew when the end was coming gave them a great chance to blow our minds. They didn't......it was a fantastic episode with a cop out, sappy family reunion at the end.

A great series and one of the better finales ever done.....but not liking the ending doesn't disqualify me or others from understanding what the show was about or being part of the lunatic fringe of Lost fans.

The concert......that uncomfortable feeling watching Daniel "Widmore" play piano.....the scene in the church.....SUCKED. The rest was great and that's how I'll remember it.

"However, finale commenter Mike would encourage that viewer to go back and watch the finale again. “Great ending to a great show…It seems most of you people didn't even ‘get it.’ THEY DID NOT DIE FROM THE CRASH. The events on the island after the crash all happened. It was the sideways world that was some kind of limbo. Jack's dad explains the whole thing at the end. Funny how some of you are posting on here complaining of a predictable end when it doesn't seem like you even know what happened.”

They made that quite clear throughout the show. They teased us with it, but always made it clear that it wasn't the case (the plane underwater? Wasn't them!) Someone up above mentioned that Hurley told Ben what a great #2 he was, which does imply they lived on. What the "purgatory" you're thinking of is the alternate reality created when they stopped the incident at the finale of season 5. It is an "alternate reality" where Jack has a son, and Locke still has his wife, and Sawyer is a cop, while the "real reality" is still going on. They're still on the island!
Jack's dad said it was a place they made for themselves...to move on, I guess. But it's an alternate reality they created when they detonated the bomb at the Swan, sort of a tangent universe a la Donnie Darko. It wasn't meant to be the true reality....only theirs...I guess.

And good lord, I still can't believe people think they died from the get-go on the plane crash in episode 1. Oceanic 6? They didn't come back to life! And man, so many spiteful people with spiteful opinions on a TV show! Why so angry? Couldn't figure it out for yourself? No, it wasn't a perfect show, but you can't expect them to completely 100% satisfy everyone. If you're so confused and angry, maybe try watching it again, or move on to something more important in your life....get over it, sh!t. Fact is, it was the most successfully popular show ever made whether you like it or not.
I'm sorry, I can't help it...I'm a man of faith.

I lasted two seasons and saw there was no "future" for this crap. just a neverending drone... there was never a plan CLEARLY they made it up as they went along. As long as rating were up there they coudl think of a new twist.

If you enjoyed the series, great, if you hated it that is fine too, but to be disappointed makes no sense, the writers wrote the story they wanted not the story you wanted.

I'm not about to read everyone's opinion on the ending and get an argument going, BUT: I thought it ended well. They knew exactly how they were going to end it from the very beginning, they made that a point and even said somewhere (I believe) that they've known what the last 3 scenes of the show were going to be from the very beginning. They even said the first season had SO many clues as to how it would end, which it does. They didn't say they'd answer every question, which became quite clear throughout the show (the numbers??)
Now jump to the middle of the season (season 3), where I personally thought it got to its worst point, and Lost did kind of stray in a way. I thought they made a few mistakes trying to listen to the audiences (uh, Paolo and Nicki??) which they admitted, but this is, for the most part, what they had planned, and I thought it was great. So sad, proud and nostalgic to see Jack lying there in the same place the show started, laughing in sweet revelation as the light turns back on and the plane flies overhead.
My ONE REGRET: Locke, who took so much crap throughout the show and had such a hard life...the one true believer that they were there for a reason, and the main reason Jack started to believe...deserved more in the end. To become the bad guy..man, it hurt. Even when in the alternate reality he finally remembered the island and I said "they HAD to bring him back!", I still felt he deserved a little more....
But LOST is by far one of the best shows ever made, and if you haven't watched it all the way through (including the kinda ugh season 3), then you can't really deny it.

When so many people are so confused with the ending, one group saying they all died when the plane crashed, one group saying the island was real, and so on and so on, it says one thing very clearly. The ending was lousy. A good ending should be on that the majority understands. This ending left so many people confused that it did not meet the objective it should have met. Personally, I hated it, I feel screwed, I feel the writers let me down and everyone else down. An ending should not be the kind of story that leaves people arguing with one another. It should say, "here is what this story was all about" in a clear and concise manner. Heck, if some one came up to me today and said "hi, I heard about this great tv show called Lost and I'm thinking of watching it, can you tell me what it is about?", I wouldn't know how to answer them because frankly, I don't know what it was all about.

I was extremely satisfied with the ending. I'm glad that they didn't slam us over the head with direct answers as per the whispers and the creation of the smoke monster. I think those particular answers fit. But as others have said, it's not really the answers or the mystery that matters. It seems like the same people clamoring to have every question answered in relation to the show, are the same ones that feel they need everything answered in real life. But there aren't always clear-cut answers in life. Even when some things are resolved, there is always more questions raised. What really matters is what is in your heart, and the people that we connect with in our lives. Christian said it perfectly at the end. "Everyone dies sometime, kiddo...No one goes through it alone. You needed all of them, and they needed you." I feel bad for those that were left disappointed, angry, or frustrated at the end. I guess they just weren't watching the same show I was for the past 6 years. I thought it was a beautiful, poetic ending to one of the most brilliant television shows of all time. Each time one of the characters "remembered" I got choked up.

Everything that happened on the island was real to these characters.
The wreckage montage at the end was merely and homage to the original set. Those that were on the plane that took off lived out the rest of their lives until their eventual deaths. I urge everyone to re-watch all six seasons after having viewed the ending. Keep in mind, also, the huge influences that certain previous works had on the creators, namely Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia. Also, read the recaps on DarkUFO.

The only question I've really been pondering after the ending now is this: How and when did the characters of "Lost" create the "purgatory" in which they could see each other again after they would eventually die? That would be a most interesting thing to have answered, possibly on the DVD release in the fall.

I get the finale. I was crying that a brilliant show ended! What a journey. I learned from this show, we are a community and we are all in this life together whether you like it or not.

I think The end means they were glorified to move on. Desmond told Eloise her son is not going to be with him on this journey. So the rest of the characters not inside the church will have their own turn for their own journey to move on. I get it that when Eloise said "the island is not done with you" meant they were not ready to move on yet and were also needed in one way or another to protect the island. So, are we, no matter how minute our role in life is, needed on earth in a master plan by our Supreme Being? I'd like to think we are part of that light that was protected or is still being protected? We are all candidates! Your choice!

I've been wandering around all day in a "Post-Lost" depression. I have tried to sort it all out, and continue to run into dead ends. But, basically I think that the finale did answer most of the big questions.

It's clear that Jack died. It's clear that Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Frank, and Richard flew off the island. Hurley, Ben, Rose, Bernard and Vincent were left on the island.

What isn't clear is whether the "sideways" world was real, or not. I'm not sure, and that made me very sad. I had really hoped that the bomb had worked, and that the characters were given the opportunity to live their lives with a happier purpose and ending.

But, with the finale, that whole idea was pretty much destroyed. I mean, if they are all just meeting at this "halfway house" en route to eternity – then the sideways world appears to only exist in their souls after they have died.

I think it is interesting that there is just the teensiest opportunity for a sequel show. It could show what happens next on the island. I mean, with Hurley as #1, and not having to run things like Jacob (hence people might be allowed to come and go), it's open for a lot of possiblities. Maybe he'll open up an amusement park on the island!
Just kidding. :-0

And it is also possible that the story could follow the characters after they get off the island.

Of course,Lost would be a hard act to follow, and sequels are notoriously watered down wanna-be's.

But, for those of us who were deeply attached to the show and it's characters, we'd probably be happy just to spend some more time with them.

I just feel like I've been reading this immense novel and finally get to the end of it only to find out I'm missing the last two chapters before the final one when it says everyone lives happily ever after! There is a huge hole the writers chose not to fill and then, once more decided that the Lost audience was stupid enough to accept any ending they handed out.

Judging from the comments here, they were right. Good for you if you are satisfied with that pat ending, but I'm intelligent enough not to follow blindly when I know I've just been taken for a ride.

To put it bluntly, only a groupie could have been satisfied by the finale. Its obvious that Lost was more about the charactes than the island. The island was just a convenient prop, and we saw the main characters grow through the emotions of fear, anger, grief, faith, etc...

I think it was rather messy how some characters were sort of left out fo the finale, when they seemed to play significant roles. i hate the fact that even the all knowing Jacob, at times seemed confused, liek when he told jack and the group "I don't knwo wher to start" when try ing to explain the situation.

And I am sorry the freaking light??? Are you serious, sacrifice your life for a light. Very Lame. After the third season it was a downward spiral. And had I jumped on board after the third season i would not followed Lost.

You want a real season finale? what about Greys Anatomy? Now that is a finale, and we even get to watch it next season.

I thought it was crap. I'd watched Lost consistantly for several seasons and then lost interest as it became clear the writers had no direction and were just making it up as they went. No plan, no concept of why or how this all happened, just a jumbled, rambling dream-like story that quit making sense.

I can't believe so many are giving the writers credit for dragging you along their disjointed tale of nonsense. I used to love Lost, but Lost lost it's course and floundered seasons ago.

Flashforwards and flashsideways were used by the writers to fill space. They didn't need to keep the story straight (they failed at this before the flashforwards/flashsideways anyway). They could just make it up and not worry about it. They knew you'd follow and praise them for it. I'm glad I quit watching three years ago. No regrets. The show had such potential and the writers wasted it all.

________

Those of us who liked it, and there are PLENTY, have four words for you.

BTW, the problem with the finale is not that it did not provide any answers. It actually did not provide useful answers or explanations to anything that mattered, and the plenty of the answers that it did provide were so dumb and trivial, they killed all opportunities for the viewer's imagination and closed the door to intelligent interpretations.

What a sad ending to such a beautiful intelligent show!!!

Nothing can be more offensive than to be asked not to ask questions, and to blindly accept. And after years of promissing to bring all questions to a clear resolution, we are being told, don't ask questions as each question leads to more questions ... What a message!!!

Honestly, those who say "you just didn't understand the ending" are really annoying. Of course, everyone understood it. Perhaps people interpreted the time of their deaths differently but everyone understands that they are all dead and they are all moving on. That being said, did we really watch six years of this series only to get this cop out ending? Everyone lived their lives, had their adventures and now they are dead and are moving on.

While I'm happy that the characters all went to heaven – or whatever – I would have preferred a finale with answers – maybe not to every question – but at least the major ones! Give me a break! It was all about the characters and their emotional journey and not about answering questions??? What just happened????

For those of you saying to go back and watch the last 15 minutes of the finale, I ask you to go back and watch the entire six seasons and maybe you'll start to understand those of us who do remember and who are frustrated that some of the biggest mysteries this show introduced was either explained off with a lame plot or not explained at all.

Great ending. It was wrapped up very well. Very sad and emotional.
That's what great TV does for the viewers who allow them selves to escape reality for a little while and jump on board the train and take the journey. Good times.

The whole progam was a study in what TV viewers would watch. We stayed glued to our sets to see just what impossible idea or thing the writers would throw out each episode. Are we surprised that they came up with a no ending. My only question is when does the movie come out?

Dont you guys remember alias. This director overwhelms the viewer with absurd plot twists, and introducing new characters every show. The viewer painstakingly trys to put it all together, but there is no reason to the madness. ARGH!!!!

I started watching Lost fresh off the end of another JJ Abrams show, ALIAS which absolutely ended horribly. I realized all the cool twists and turns Lost presented were never going to be fully explained but were just tools to keep people watching. Unfortunately, this kind of trickery only works once or twice. People will no longer have patience for polar bears on tropical islands and for a strange time travel twist if they don't think it will fit into some form of logic. It was a fun show to watch but the creators burned their bridges. No one will trust them again. The next time flash of light kills everyone (then no one like the end of last season) people will just flip the channel.

Maybe if all you "Losters" would pick up a book sometimes, you wouldn't be left needing anti-depressants... Fer crissake, it was a T.V. show not Shakespeare. The writers did the job, which was not religion, so shake it off and PLEASE don't mention it as something you want in a mate when you try to find your soul-mate online... I think the writers were trying to say, "Okay, now you see what happens when your time comes and you didn't actually LIVE a life...". Go on, get outside and try talking to someone who is real.

LOL @ bigmike. Ummmm, it's SCIENCE FICTION, bigmike. It's as real as the REALITY it's set in. What you're implying is like saying, "There's NO WAY Klingons are real! Only Humans exist in the universe. Star Trek sucked."

The characters were all dead from the getgo, just as everyone reckoned.

The island was like a dream in that it never made any real sense, and the mechanisms etc were never explained because like a dream they exist for a different reason entirely. George Lucas calls these things macguffins, things that exist solely to move the plot along. e.g. the smoke monster. What is that thing? In a sci-fi story, there is an attempt made to explain it. Warp drive may not be buildable with present technology, but the descriptions the characters give are close enough to what's possible that you go with it.

In fantasy though you have things that exist and there's no sane reason for them to exist: they just do, and you have to accept this. The smoke monster is a fantasy element. Not sci-fi. And as a fantady elemant it's merely a macguffin. It exists because it can, and it forces characters to do things they might not otherwise do. If the island was real then faeries exist as do unicorn farts, because there is no explanation for a snoke monster. It is not a real thing on the planet I live on (I'm not so sure about some of you.)

Purgatory (Dante Alighieri, anyone?) can be multilevel, and the island was just a part of of the layers of purgatory.

Lastly I find it amusing that some posters take christian shepard's thing of "it was real" literally and ironically assume that this means the island was real. Ummmm.... no. It meant that the island was real to the participants. It was their first stop in purgatory. It was real to them, not anyone else. (Relativity is interesting.) Of course, this observation will merit cries of me being stupid, unintelligent, and someone who didn't watch the show and/or too vapid to "get it." So be it.

all of the silly theories i shared on this board didn't pan out in the end. but i'm glad - this was so much better than i imagined. it took a lot of guts to do this type of end. i'm really impressed. epic.

Michael and Walt were not there probably for 2 reasons, firstly the actor who plays Walt no longer looks like he did at the beginning of the show since he grew like 2 feet, it would be kinda stupid to have some 19 year old playing a 13 year old kid. Also Michael was shown to be one of the whispering spirits on the island so maybe he was not able to leave owing to the fact that he was basically evil and selfish.

I never enjoyed watching TV, but I saw the LOST preview 6 years ago, and for the first time said to myself, "I need to watch this." I watched LOST religiously since. In my opinion, nothing else will ever compare to its meticulous story and character development. Everything was planned perfectly. Before the finale, I had hoped for many questions to be answered, but I was perfectly content with their lack of answers once it ended. It was as heartbreaking as finishing an epic book series. One closes the book and you perhaps feel a sense of relief, but of loss. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect final second: Jack's eye closing. Beautiful and ironic. Perfect. Thank you. I will miss you.
JLH

I was satisfied with the ending, and like most of you felt that I had some questions that still needed to be answered.

Many people are quick to throw out the idea that they were all dead since the crash. i for one believe that they all did perish and that the island was purgatory. All those there were LOST souls because they had all done bad things in their lives in spite of being good people. They were all misunderstood and lonely in their real life, like Jacob.

There was a battle between good and evil on the island and it was a test for all those LOST souls. Would they work together to find there way to heaven, or would they fall to the temptations of evil and get dragged to hell.

There's NO WAY that island was real. Locke, who was paralyzed from the waste down, could suddenly walk again. Jack was seeing his dead father all over the place. Polar bears and smoke monsters are NOT REAL. Richard lived on that island for hundreds and hundreds of years... How is this possible? All those featured in the show had done questionable things in their life and were there to find themselves.

They were all lost souls who met in the afterlife and who then worked together to make it to heaven. Jacks father, who had himself done questionable things in his life, and who I might add was also on that plane when it crashed... had made the journey as well.

Hence all the Ancient Egyptian references– those guys were obsessed with the afterlife and the journey of the soul to its final resting place...

The island was a place of magic, mystery, and wonder. The writers obviously wanted it to remain that way. If every question was answered and all was explained, there would be no wonder, no magic, just an elaborate system of cause/effect rules.

Maybe instead of fueling the 'debate' over what the last 5 minutes of the finale meant, which was pretty obvious to me because I did something a lot of people apparently didn't.... paid attention. It was clearly explained by Christian Shepherd that everyone in the church had died at some point, some before Jack, some long after, and that the reason they were all there was because the most important parts of their lives took place together. Meaning everything that took place on the island, even off the island in season 5 and before all really did happen. Only the 'flash sideways' in season 6 was the limbo dream-state.

Hurley told Ben, "You made a great number two" and Ben replied "You made a great Number One". Which meant they really did take care of the island together, and for a while.

The last scene of the finale, Jack staggering into the bamboo grove, laying down and dying of his wounds from fighting smokey after fixing the plug in the island was Jack's death. He didn't die in the plane crash, none of the characters in the church died in the plane crash.

To believe that they died in the crash is to just totally disregard too much other stuff, like Jin and Sun remembering their deaths in the submarine, Desmond's, or Ben's existence AT ALL, etc.

I very much liked the finale. The show was entertaining from start to finish. The best since x-files, although a differentt genre.Definately character driven and they made you care about the players. I will surely miss it. Not all questions were answered, but I got it, in my own way. I was entertained and that's all that matters, for me at least.

I was the smiling/frowning clown, often blubbering sometimes laughing both at the same time, as when James says... "I'd love to but the machine ate my dollar I only go one left... " and Juliet responds, "let's go dutch." But at the end of the day they screwed the pooch. Call me next time... right when dying Jack is watching the plane fly over head... I'd have fixed it right then and there, ceteris parabus..

You can like or dislike the ending, but you can't keep insisting that the island was purgatory and they all died in the crash, because it was made very clear that it wasn't. You don't get to write the ending your way unless it was your story. You want the island to be purgatory? Write your own TV series. The writers of this one wrote it their way.

The finale was definitely some of the best TV ever scene. From about 1/3 of the way through, it was completely gripping.

One could view it as a semi-hokey reunion episode of sorts, but in typical LOST fashion, it left enough questions so that it wasn't just that:
– Was the church scene just Jack's last delude memories?
– Was the LA sequence just someone's imagination or was it another timeline brought about the the island's time jumping?
– Was the church scene the reality after they all died?

And, of course, it still leaves question about what the light is and what's special about the island

How stupid can not only the people whos quotes were taken for this interview be, but the writer of the article itself. Why take the quotes from people who were to dumb to figure out the flash sideways....or the people who actually wonder if people were alive or dead on the island. Why was Des and Penny there? If you were smart enough to understand what the writers put on a silver platter right in front of you, you wouldnt ask such dumb questions.

I enjoyed the final episode – it was very entertaining and suspenseful. I thought that including all the major religious symbols in the church was a nice touch, and that the idea of there being no "now" in the afterlife is an interesting philosophy.

That being said, I do think that the sideways/limbo world could have been better portrayed (in my opinion). 1) People died in this world (Sayid killed that Keamy marine guy if I'm not mistaken). 2) Aaron inexplicably became an infant again. 3) Miles didn't grasp his own death despite being a medium to the dead. 4) Michael and Walt were not in the church- Walt did nothing sinful in any means during the show, and Michael's murders were commited in trying to save his son. Seems more honorable Ben killing the entire Dharma Initiative, or even Sawyer killing Walt's abductor in cold blood.

All in all though, Lost was a great show. I think the people that are really complaining and saying that they "hated" the ending only proves that the producers made up a very captivating story, even if it was a bit of a fool's errand to try and completely understand it.

FINAL WORD ON WHEN THEY DIED - JUGHEAD EXPLAINS ALL: At the end of Season5, Juliette falls into the hatch shaft and sets off the atom bomb JUGHEAD. At the beginning of Season6, she is pulled out and tells Sawyer that "It worked." Meaning, they got off the island. Meaning the bomb destroyed the island, killed all of the main and sub characters on the island (as well as every imaginary character including the Smoke Monster if that will make you feel better), and thus fulfilled everyone's wish to get off the island. But EVERYONE (including the fans) IS IN DENIAL. Season6 was just for ABC to continue the revenue stream while laughing all the way to the bank while we go on debating like Jugheads. BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if ABC's ATM password is 'Jughead.' We all enjoyed it while it lasted so it's fine with me.

I am sick of hearing that sorry excuse for the finale that the writers spread like a virus "It was all about characters"... If it were, then you should have written a soap opera not a scifi mystery ... It was all about the logic, reason and science ... I care to know about the history of the island, the very many populations that we saw live on it, about the temple, and the light, and the time travels ... Why should I care about how you match Kate and Sawyer in your sopa opera ending? ...

To add insult to the injury are all those people who keep writing, "if you did not like it, it is because you did not understand"

We certainly understood the ending, and all possible interpretations of it... We just don't like this shallow death and redemption and afterlife implications ...

"There is one problem with the ending. Why didnt Jack turn into a smoke monster. He should have become evil like the black shirted brother did."

Jack was acting from a selfless perspective... He hadn't just killed his own mother out of selfish anger... Somehow I think those things would make a difference if you allow for it... If you are looking for a scientific breakdown of how everything on the island happens... I'm guessing you would be disappointed no matter what....

One last comment... All the people totally trashing the writing should post links to the masterpieces they have written... Since you are apparently far more intelligent and accomplished than the actual writers of the show I would truly love to see your work...

I'm not going to comment on the show. It is what it is – better or worse depending on your intelligence level. Though, what does interest me is that people who have never seen the show come on here to comment about it. Are their lives so boring and lonely that they need to participate in a conversation they know nothing about? What really cracked me up (or actually made me roll my eyes) is one particular comment where someone said they only watched the first couple of seasons and the finale. Then they go on to make a bunch of mundane criticisms about the show. Another person bothered to post that they have never watched the show and then go on (with a certain amount of smugness) to say that they are glad because the finale made no sense? Bizarre behavior.

The most strange post was from someone who had NEVER watched the show. They only watched the show recap and the finale... and they totally got the meaning of the end. Most folks spent 6 years and didn't have it figured out because they get lost in the details. If find all that interesting.

I am just incredibly sad that this wonderful show is over. I thought the final scene with Jack closing his eyes was perfect (and with Vincent along side; just as he was in the beginning after the crash). No, I don't understand everything and when I try to, I just have more questions (why was Penny in the church when she was never on the plane?).
A fantastic show that will be missed; and I thank the creators and actors for a very entertaining six years. All the best.

If, as all the defenders are saying, that they did not die after the crash,everything that happened on the island was real, and purgatory was the flash sideways...then why was the smoke monster coexisting with them on the island and harrasing them and killing people?

Not a whole lot of it makes sense in the end and it was a rushed ending. Unfortunately, this is becasue of all the people that got frustrated and started complaining about the show during season 3. The writers were forced to place an end date on the show and this is what we got...and it was pretty poor. If all of the science stuff (the Dharma iniciative, Hanso, etc.) was all just meaningless, then why spend so much time developing that aspect of the story only to ignore it later? Dumb.

It was great television but the finale has left me wanting 6 seasons of my life back. It was just a Jacob's Ladder rip off in the end...a great movie that is so much more complete and all in two hours.

Perfect ending. I loved that the island-time(s) was(were) all real, except the Losties-created side-ways no-time land. I feel Hurley and his mission to 'take car of people' got that ball going somehow, with his ability to talk to the dead, 'powers' as #1, $$$, and Ben's knowledge about how to come and go from the island. And I love that we still get to wonder about things like an Island/Gaia mystical-science interface somehow preventing a myth- woven worse than Krakatoa-like catastrophe and the nature of self-determination in redemption. Even loved the anagram 'D-O-G' not letting Jack die alone and bringing the whole journey full circle.

Thanks for the really nice story about heaven. But I had been watching a story about a strange island.

What about the gaddam island?!

.... so as much as i love the characters, they alone did not pull me into the show. The sci-fi mysteries on the island kept me interested in the show episode to episode way more than the characters' back stories (not that they weren't good also, but couldn't carry the show on their own). That being said more answers were definitely necessary. Otherwise as me and my friends now believe, the journey was way better than the final destination.

About Shannon and Sayid - Why was it not Nadia? Well I thought it was actually very nicely done. Nadia was never really Sayid's. When he was with her she didnt live, even in that purgatory, the sideways flash, he was not with her. For Sayid, Nadia was everything he could not have, he would never have. But he found peace with Shannon, he came to terms with not having Nadia and instead managed to love someone else, someone not so out of his reach. Nadia was never his true love, but it is what he wanted more then anything.

Why no Walt or Michael or even a grown up Aaron?

Well, Walt went on to have his own life, his own purgatory would more then likely have many different people, this most important part of his life will not have been the Island. Thats the same with Aaron, or Frank or even Miles. Daniel and Charlotte will have different people in their own form of purgatory, even Ana Lucia. The reason they were not present in that church was because for them the most important people in their lives were NOT that core group of people.

Michael? ... Well Michael is forever punished. Or maybe he will eventually find some peace, but for the time being he is condemned to be on the island, to never find peace until perhaps he atones for his past sins. Perhaps he will be there when Walt finally has his own purgatory and is ready to move on.

Couple of things . . . (i) I think that it is funny people are calling the sideways time-line, "purgatory", and the place Jack and the crew are going to, "heaven". Christian said that the church that they met in was built by those that met there. Sure doesn't sound like any definition of purgatory that my Catholic friends have ever talked about with me. And, (ii) I wish that the writers changed Christian's line to, "Hurley built this place while he was protecting the island so that his friend could come together before moving on." That way there wouldn't be all this debate about who was an who wasn't at the Church. Hurley would control the invite list. It also would end the debate about was the island real (although I think the show did a good job of ending that debate). Finally, it would show Hurley as an excellent #1.

The ones who died on the island and did bad things-like Vincent, never leave the island.

Kate's dress changed b/c she said b4 they went into the church, "when you're ready." Maybe it was years b4 Jack went into the church. A dress change? Big deal! BIG picture, people!

Also, did you notice all faiths were represented in the church's back room where Jack met up with his father?

Yes, this season was sewn up too quickly; the producers' imaginations-genius though they were-got way too far ahead of themselves and had to come up with something calming for all the Losties.
I think they did a pretty good job with the ending. Nothing's perfect, but the ending, after all these years, was hopeful. There's something good to say about that.

And most people like you apparently don't realize that the writers knew the entire arc of the story all along. If they knew they had a hit on their hands, then why did they ask ABC for a specific end date? The show improved significantly mid season 3 when ABC gave them their end date and they knew how much time they had to work with to tell the story of LOST. And they did an excellent job as far as I'm concerned.

Most people don't seem to realize that the writers had no real idea what to do after the show became a hit in the first season. They created a show but afterwards had no idea what to do with the story after that. No middle or ending planned. So now it's a hit and they have to come up with a continuation of the starting plot. Unlike miniseries, where they have an actual full story to work with, network TV develops these ideas hoping to have a hit show, but without planning a middle or ending to them. All they want to do is get a show to be on the schedule first & hopefully have a hit.
So basically, the "Lost" writers created all this craziness for 5 seasons after the 1st season, then had to try to tie up every weird thing they created. Can't be done! However I admit the ending they came up with was as satisfying as it could be, and it was a very tearful & sentimental one at that. IMO they actually did well.

I hated the ending. It didn't make any sense, Aaron is a baby in purgatory? Sayid shooting bad guys in purgatory?

And remember the season started with the island at the bottom of the ocean, apparently in purgatory with the characters unaware? What was that about? Why even show that scene? And why even do an entire season of time jumping and exploding a hydrogen bomb when it all had nothing to do with anything in the end.

Oh yeah! My final complaint! They killed the main character and join everyone together after they are dead? Dead?

What a downer!

I really enjoyed this show and I;m glad they had a chance to end it their own way but obviously the writers wrote themselves into a corner and didn't know what to do in the end.

Okeedokee. I... am in... the wrong... room. This is apparently the room for whiners. One of the greatest shows ever and one of possibly the greatest endings ever, and you guys are still holding a grudge because of items like a freaking kid's special abilities from season 1 were never explained?...
This is one of the best examples of "not seeing the forest for the trees" I have ever seen.

Some of you guys are demanding answers to questions that were probably never intended to be answered. Why does black dust keep the smoke monster away? I dunno, how did Willy Wonka enslave a bunch of orange midgets to work in his chocolate factory? I care about that movie due to Charlie's rags to riches story. It's the same approach here. I don't think we were ever going to get intricate explanations for the numbers or anything else. They were narrative devices used to put characters through the wringer. That's a pretty important part of a creating an engaging story.

"I love CNN's headlines when every poll online I've seen shows people hated the LOST finale. I guess you should expect them to try to boost their own shows."
I'm pretty sure CNN is owned by Time Warner...not ABC/Disney.

Jack not turning into a smoke monster may indicate that Jacob's brother didn't turn into Smokey either, but actually died when he hit his head when Jacob threw him into the stream. Smokey may have already been down there and used the body of Jacob's brother just as he used John Locke's. Remember, some of the ghosts on the island were Smokey manipulating people. Maybe that wasn't Jacob's real mother who appeared before his brother, maybe it was Smokey. There were other skeletons down in that cave near the light source. I think Smokey already existed before Jacob and his brother were ever born and was waiting for a new body.

They all died in the initial crash. The island was indeed purgatory. Everything that occured on the island did indeed occur – in the world that was their shared purgatory. The sideways reality was a tool by which the characters gained redmeption – through love. As they gained clarity as to their situation in the sideways reality – they helped their freinds gain this insight as well. Only those who redeemed themselves through selfless love met at the end to move on to a higher realm/heaven.

Ok so when you die on the island you move on to the redemption stage then to heaven. What about the ones that were dead on the plane from the start? They don't get a chance, but Ben does? Also how do you explain Jacob and the MIB as they were not following the rules to the purgatory and seemed to be Godly. Perhaps they are God and the Devil.

Honestly, these comments on this board are moronic. People still asking questions about "mysteries"... that were already revealed, and the ones that weren't – who cares? The show was about the characters and the reflection of them in our lives. If you're complaining about this and the ending then seriously there is a channel for you, it's called SyFy.

I think that this article led off it's analysis by using the "analysis" of Tony Kevin Patton makes me really want to get this 5 minutes of my life back.
Ummmmm Tony and the writer of this article – did you watch season 6? Seriously?

While I can suspend my disbelief quite nicely, I personally still need some logic into a story line to appreciate it. So to me, the theory that Oceanic 815 had no survivors in the first place is the ONLY one that makes sense here. And that last camera shot on the plane wreckage seals it for me. Those folks crashed and died, and their LOST souls' journey into the next step started then and there together (referring to Christian's statement to Jack: "You don't die alone!") Along the way, they met other lost souls on their own journey (Danielle Rousseau, the others, Richard, Jacob, whispering voices, etc.) and as they got together and so did their stories. Jacob was perhaps the oldest wondering soul around, so no wonder he became some sort of guide. The black smoke he 'created' could have been a metaphor of what was keeping him from moving on.

When one thinks of it this way (i.e. of a saga of dead people and their lost souls), all the special spatial-temporal and other special properties of the island become (regretfully so) irrelevant because for this story they are just that, irrelevant. In dreams, or in representation of after life issues such as time elapsed (the entire LOST saga could have passed in a nano second), location, and real events are moot. The writers got away with everything by explaining nothing or rather by revealing a premise that doesn't require explanation.

On a side note, that this was essentially the island of the dead also explains why women could not carry pregnancies to term. The dead can't reproduce. 😉

I THOUGHT the final episode was going to be majorly disappointing considering some of the episodes from the past few weeks of the series.

BUT I was very pleased with the ending and the series as a whole-a truly unique television show (I have NEVER watched all of any TV series before this because they are generally SO predictable and dull) that reminded me a tad bit of David Lynch's movies. I kind of have a love hate thing with him-I do like his movies, although they usually drives me nuts.

I personally love open ended, ambiguous stories that let you mull them over and chat with others to get their impressions and then you finally get to make up your own mind about the whole thing. Of course it drives me crazy on the other hand to not get the answers to everything and ESPECIALLY the little things like the polar bear remains the red-head found in one brief scene and why the Others were testing Walt who seemed to have some weird power to summon things or make things happen... among MANY other things that were left unanswered in the series. BUT, writers are artists in my opinion and they are allowed to conjure up weird ideas that don't make sense if they like, why should they follow any one else's rules, it is their script, go write your own if you think you can do better. It would be a pretty boring and un-life-like show if things only happened that were directly relevant to the plot and then were all neatly tied up (think Tarantino).

Anyway, the real reason I got on here was to ask if anyone else thought the writers were making some commentary on faith versus science. Of course they directly addressed this often enough with the real Locke and Jack. But I have been thinking a lot about the "mother" talking to Jacob and MIB about men coming to the island and doing "bad" things (searching for answers by digging the well and trying to harness the light) and later with the Darma Initiative and even with Benjamin's Others-they were not a nice bunch-remember the movie alex's boyfriend was forced to watch with all the Jacod loves you weirdness? It seemed that Jacob represented more of a faith aspect and the MIB represented "man's" curious and scientific nature. I actually sympathized quite a bit with the MIB, he wasn't really evil-sure he became pretty nasty at the end but he was really just a man who wanted more from his life than to be told he had only one path in life and had NO free will (kind of the opposite of what all the other characters from the crash were lead to believe). Plus after who knows how many years of being trapped on the Island, I'm sure anyone would go a little nutty. I won't even get into all the weird father issues this show brought up... seriously, almost EVERY main character had serious daddy issues. Anyway,

I like the idea someone said earlier of the Island being the actual gateway to wherever souls go when they die. That explains a lot about the problem with having babies on the island and why some people got stuck there and why the light had to be protected. It also explains why there never was any explanation as to all the mysteries of the island-who can explain death and what happens after or just before one dies???? These matters are not to be explained or understood by science and rational thought, they are the great "mysteries" of life (I love that the writers used a lot of references to various religions and their stories without making it any particular one-more a universal spirituality).

Anyway, any great work is bound to create a lot of discussion and debate and LOST has surely done that-great job!

What a relief from the day to day mundane topics that are often discussed like what celebrity is having a nervous breakdown or what new gizmo we should all run out and purchase.

I think that the island was purgatory...a place where those who are Lost in their worldly lives go when they die so they can redeem themselves. Each of the characters had troubled pasts, but did unselfish acts at some point in the course of six seasons or sacrificed themselves in some way or helped another in some way to free their troubled souls. Once they are able to let go of the own personal demons, they are able to cross over. Ben did not go into the church because he either had not redeemed himself or is destined for Hell. As you recall, he tells Locke that he is sorry for what he did to him and Locke says, "I forgive you". He longing looks at the church but says he's not going in. Perhaps, he still cannot forgive himself; therefore, he cannot go into the church. Aaron was a baby in the church because Claire was pregnant at the time of the crash and neither survived. The flash forwards are a glimpse of what life would have been like. This is why Jin and Sun did not have a child at the church. If the island was not a supernatural place, tell me the last time you actually saw a smoke monster or were able to travel through time? I enjoyed the ending and symbolic references.

In my opinion, what really made this show was the development of the characters and their relationships over time and how the mysteries of the island incubated that development. The island and all of it's mysterious history and events were the stage, not the star.

I can understand why people would feel cheated by the ending. It's natural for us to want answers to all the questions and mysteries. So without getting too carried away here – let me offer that life doesn't give us packaged answers. What we do is make up our own answers and hope that they work for us. Based on the variety of opinions, the praise, the insults, the criticizm – the last show created an infinite number of answers and thus an infinite number of endings! People will be talking, discussing, arguing about what it all meant for months and the fun part is that no one will be exactly right or absolutely wrong.

Don't you see how brilliant it was? Whether you liked the ending or not, you have to admire how the show pulled at you until the very last minute. Be disappointed, be confused, be satisfied or be angry – either way you were engaged in a way that few forms of entertainment are able to do these days.

From the show's creators' viewpoint, what higher praise could you ask for than to have so many different lines drawn in the sand?

The stuff on the island DID happen! If people are confused, re-watch the part where Jack's dad pretty much explained what happened. Some of the people there did die on the island, but some people died later in life, somewhere else.

I loved the ending. Most of life is unexplainable and unknown. The ending was not an experience of the head, where all of the questions were answered. It was an experience of the heart...a reunion of our beloved characters. i enjoyed every episode of 'Lost' for the moments they created...the intrigue, the suspense, the relationships, and the challenge of survival on all levels. I enjoyed how human nature with all of its flaws and all of its glory and all of its compassion – the light and the dark – were beautifully depicted. I will miss it, but will probably watch it again and again. Thank you to everyone who created such a TV masterpiece. May the Light be with you.

The people who don't like the ending seem to also be people who don't understand what happened... if you pay attention, maybe even re-watch at least the last episode (or the whole last season if necessary), the ending will make sense to you. There are still unanswered questions, and there are some things you just have to assume (because we don't know how every single person died), but I thought it was a very thoughtful and thought-provoking ending. LOVED IT!

Referring to the quote by "Commenter Glenn" he definitly got the ending wrong and thats why he's confused, it wasn't everyone who died on the plan, bc they didn't die on the plane. What happened on the island, happened. And their deaths on island or off, actually occurred. And those we didn't see die on screen, died whenever the did (old age, etc)

Totally unsatisfying and meant only to spur on more empty rhetoric about "What does it all mean." They're not out creating art, people: They were there to earn a paycheck. If you thought there was more to it, they you got duped. Suckers!!

Desmond and Jack didn't become smoke monsters because they weren't thrown into the well, already dead, with malice. The Smoke Monster was Jacob's mistake, as he said in "What They Died For".

I thought the ending was perfect. So many good moments between the characters. I think people who didn't like it fall into two categories: 1. Didn't understand it (most people. as has been said repeatedly, our losties did NOT DIE IN THE CRASH) 2. It didn't answer all the little mysteries that weren't important to the story (and many of which can be answered with some critical thinking).

I don't understand the "the writers didn't know what they were doing!" camp. Did you want them to write all 6 seasons in one session? With actors coming and going (and growing)? With writers coming and going? With uncertainty about funding, end dates, ratings? They did a magnificent job of creating DEEP characters whom we grew to love. They added mystery that kept us involved on a surface level, that added plot lines, that were just plain fun. But those mysteries were ALWAYS secondary to the inner conflicts of our losties.

LOST is like life. The characters weren't lost physically, but spiritually and mentally. And in the end, what they found was each other. We will never understand life. When we found the atom, was that the end of our scientific search? When we smash particles together, will we understand everything? If we desperately seek answers, we will remain lost. We must learn to let go, accept ourselves, our situation, and find happiness through our own crazy, mystery ridden journey. That's the point.

@nancy, please learn how to be a contributing member of society, they weren't dead from the begining, in fact, most didn't die until the last few episodes... i mean wow, did you even watch it? they DIDN'T DIE IN THE PLANE CRASH. if you can't comprehend the show why watch it?

I think that people that wanted all answers to be answered did't get the Lost spirit and essence.
Lost is this, take it or leave it, a lot of people abandoned it because of the lack of clear " answers"....the series finale gave us the important clues but a lot is left to our imagination and to our personal view of life and afterlife...this is the challenge that many people does not seem to get, it's deeper than a simple question not answered....intellectually stimulating, that's why we are still talking about it and that's why we will talk about Lost in the future.

My interpretation:
-The Island was real, weird but very real.
( it is impossoble to explain the Island, it's a weird place in which weird stuff happen...just accept the fictional creation, like you accept vampires, for example...)
– Jack died in the very last frame of the finale.
– The parallel Universe was a limbo in which they were all dead and where they all needed to come together and remember each other before letting go and leaving that world fro good.

Yes, I'd like to know what happened to Walt, more about Eloise and Withmore..but those were just satellites...so I can be fine with those unasnwered questions.

I like the idea they all went to heaven. But there were too many unanswered questions regarding the island and all that happened there. I agree with those who say the writers were lazy. I think they took the easy way out and didn't have any answers to all the stuff they wrote that happened on the island. It is like they just made up stuff each week without any idea how they were going to have it make sense in the end. Oh well guess we did want they wanted. Hung in there for 6 years watiing for the big question to be answered.

anyone that thinks flash sideways and the like weren't explained, or if you're saying 'I KNEW IT ALL ALONG, THEY WERE DEAD THAT EXPLAINS IT' have either never watched, nor did you watch the last episode, or you shouldn't be allowed to...they weren't dead the whole time, all that happened on the island happened for real, the ending indicates that the survivors lived their lives out and met when they all eventually died. if you were screaming AHA i knew it, you should please never vote or form opinions of your own again.

Lost Junkie, great points! It's all about ratings. For LOST, they had a mad dash to the end and tried to gobble up everything they could. They knew they had the loyal fans, but they needed more than that. So, they went for gold and tried the same techniques that the Superbowl uses–lots of commercials, previews and highlights of the entire season, etc–to lure in the others.

Of course there are religious fanatics who are trying to co opt Lost as some kind of Christian allegory! Please, keep your religion to yourselves. This was a mainly sci-fi tv show-not 7th Heaven-people.
That said, I understood the show and its finale but have to say that I still think it has been extremely overrated. And the finale was way too sentimental.

The ending was such an injustice to a brilliant show and those intelligent viewers who followed every episode for six years, not missing the smallest symbolism and detail. The level of intelligence dropped from the ceiling to the floor in the last episodes. There is no way to offend a person more than by telling them d...on't ask questions, because every answer raises another question??? – i.e. just accept what I am telling you, and blindly follow me. Is that what it was all about? To accpet anything you are told? The soap opera ending was an insult to viewers... At the end all the people, events, dialougues, moves that we so carefully watched meant nothing. Science meant nothing. Questions meant nothing. Now if you are a "real fan" (!!!) as some put it, you have to be thankful for this shameful ending, and these pathetic answers to the intelligent questions that were raised for years.

*** I believed that with this finale the writers sold out the true fan base of the show, and those who missed episodes over and over again, and reached out to a new demographic. If you liked the ending, you did not realize that it was solely written to the first episode – wonder why they aired it again on Satuday? – and ignored 6 years and over hundred of in between episodes. That is why you find many people stating that they just watched the first and last episodes and are very happy with the finale. ***

They played the emotion card, and its all about characters (that you see people repeating here), without bringing and intellectual closure to the show. For all of us who invested many many hours, and religeously watched the show for six years, they robbed us and gave us nothing ...

On a CNN broadcast today one female announcer said something like, "If you don't know what happened on the last episode of "lost" you must live on an island or under a rock". Frankly that is insulting. I don't watch that show, and frankly am not interested in it. To demean your viewers is bad for CNN public relations.

I have lived in 5 countries, speak 3 languages and have a Master's degree and have never lived under a rock! You don't build support for your station by insulting viewers.

There are plenty of good intelligent shows which require creativity, insight and quality entertainment besides "reality TV".

So why did the writers turn the show over to the writers of Ghost Whisperer? I half expected Jennifer Love Hewitt to walk into the church and urge them all to go into the light... LOL! Sad ending to a great show.

Smelled like 'SIX FEET UNDER' finale to me – tie it all up nicely in a neat, little pink bow, cutesie gift-wrapped package, everyone happy, everyone smiling, everyone in the 'group hug,' everyone 'saved' and 'forgiven.' Very shallow. Infantile. Too many 'Christian' overtones. Hollywood is now in the preaching business.

Jack dies in the end of the original timeline. The flash-sideways is purgatory that was created by the Losties to let them met each other again before "moving on" to the afterlife or heaven or whatever (notice all the symbols of faith behind Jack), and most of the characters lived on after the island for 40-50 years and than they died naturally and met up in purgatory as well. Christian tells Jack there is no "now" here, as in time does not exist in purgatory, so even though characters like Boone and Shannon died years before Jack, and characters like Sawyer and Kate died decades later, they all meet simultaneously because there is no time.

I actually have a take on why it was important for Clair to raise Aaron by herself and why it shouldn't be Kate. Actually Jacob answered it: He said that Kate was crossed out from the Candidates group co she became a mom. Could it be it? That Kate raising Aaron decreased the number of the potential Jacobs?

Loved the finale. Loved the entire series. Sad to see it end. Thank you J.J. Abrams, Lindelof, and Cuse for creating a show that actually required the viewer to think... well done. Can't wait to see what will come next from the minds that gave us this brilliant, thought provoking program.

On a normal day, one gets to the office checks all their Social Networks, email, any pertinent blogs, news then start on their day. Usually this happens about noon because now the interruptions from fellow employees asking what you did last night and what shows you watched. Not today. It was like walking into an office full of confused, outraged, some downright angry peers. and a few even cried! Why you ask? The finale of Lost.

My head hurts more from participating in this fiasco that if you hit me with a baseball bat.

I've heard the theories of the people on the Island never really existed because they died in the initial plane crash. I heard theories of Purgatory. Bloggers have every theory imaginable posted and of course they are all correct.

What I will say on behalf is that ABC's had absolutely the right strategy for the finale, and the full night ofr programming. Look at the numbers: Lost key demographics for is 18-49 year olds (the favorite for the advertisers) Throughout the series they had an audience of 13.5 million views with only a 200,000 deviation.

ABC pulled a 6.4 rating for this all to confusing finale. But it doest stop their. Jimmy Kimmel Live featured some cast members which boosted his ratings and attracted 4.88 million up from his normal 1.66 million.

All I am hearing from my wife, her friends, my friends, bloggers, co-workers, any many more random people on the subway is their take on what happened.

I come out a good Economics school which means I have a little different take on the Lost Finale. ABC pulled off great ratings all night and I am sure that translated into dollars.

To put perspective on this, Google Lost Series Finale. You will find 2,020,000 results.

There's an old show-biz maxim: Always leave 'em wanting more. After six years of "LOST," I got pretty bloated on it.

"Twin Peaks" ... "The X-Files" ... "24" ... "LOST" ... all great for a while, but hung around too long, getting more convoluted and tedious. After three or four years of a TV drama, you've seen 100-plus hours with the same characters and settings. No matter how well done it is, that's pretty much the limit I can endure of the same basic thing.

Recently, I've found I've enjoyed some BBC series. "Hex" ... "Jekyll" ... twelve episodes and they're done. Not as driven by greed as American broadcasting, they're not so tempted to keep squeezing the golden goose. Even if they're not the greatest thing since sliced bread, at least they don't wear out their welcome.

No one is ever happy with anything, are they? Come on people, this was the greatest show I have ever seen. I didn't even care how it ended, because everything happened for a reason. The ending was amazing and tear jerking. Most questions were answered, if you actually watch and pay attention to every episode. Some were left unanswered, but thats the beauty of it, we can still theorize and talk about it forever. Life is one big unanswered question, and so is the universe.

I hate to break it to you people, but you know what’s interesting about this show and especially Mathew Fox? NOTHING! I have met 'Mr. Fox' and it proved to me that my preconceptions about him were entirely true. He is an utter waste of space and a complete tool, he should be returned to the primordial ooze from which he spawned.

Im glad the writers didn explain every esoteric subject literally, it would have ruined the show, if you didnt get the show, or what it all meant, no problem, get over it! lol the finaly was amazing, it ended in fantastic fashion and in my opinion it explained everything i needed to know, nice wrap up! Lost is one of my top 3 fav shows all time!

The entire 6 yrs.of LOST was the greatest series in TV history. And the ending was awesome. Unfortunately some people just didn't get it, If you try to anylize it,, you lose the enjoyment of it. As Locke was always saying, everything happened for a reason – TO ENTERTAIN your MIND.

I find it amusing that a lot of the 'unanswered' questions people have have actually been answered at some point..if you paid attention.

For instance, the 'mysterious' polar bear? The DHARMA Initiative clearly has polar bears during the 1970's timeline. Numerous references are made to them, and Sawyer and Kate are locked in the polar bear cages several times. It is not unreasonable that some of the polar bears escaped and/or managed to survive until the Oceanic survivors show up.

All of the 'survivors' were brought to the island by Jacob. to be potential replacements for him. It is no mystery why they were there and Jacob himself spells out why he selected those specific people.

It is also made explicitly clear that the alternate-timeline is the purgatory, and that the events on/off the island actually transpired. Certain characters do not show up at the church because it would not make sense for them to be there.

Overall, I think the writers did an excellent job over the entire course of the show. Alternate timelines/time travel/etc. are all really complex to handle and still have plotlines and character development that makes sense. Bravo!

This show wasn't as good as people think it was. There were too many loose threads at the end. Maybe if they go back and get rid of the subplots that didn't go anywhere, we'd have three really good seasons I could recommend to watch on DVD. People say the writers didn't spell things out on purpose - that's silly, they wouldn't even know how!

I told Jack, "stick a cork in it, this show's done." And luckily he did.

Morons... listen up. They weren't all dead from the flight. Jack's father said, "everyone dies sometime – and this group of people were the key point in your life" ... "Time has no meaning here."

So Jack died after he restored the light on the island.
Julliet died in season 6.
Hurley died after more unknown adventures as the islands caretaker.
Boon died in season 2.

It doesn't matter when they died... the flash forwards were the "reality they needed to construct to let go." .... .... so they all met in the afterlife, in limbo, in the flash-sideways.

The island happened. Some people died on the island, and then went on after death to the flash sideways. Some people died after having escaped the island, and then went on after death to the flash sideways.

If Jacob explaining it to you doesn't flick the light on in your head then the final scene with Jack lying there, dying, seeing the flash sideways as it was his time to die ... ... hello? Are you all the same people that watched the show? I can't believe that people think the island was limbo.... morons.... go watch Dancing with the Stars.

Um yes "burnsy" we all get it. The sideways world was purgatory. They all eventually died and were reunited and it was a big love fest in the church. So what's up with the island? You know where 97.353% of the six long arduous seasons took place.
WRITER1: "Ah screw it let's just write a big emotive ending."
WRITER2: "Ya and have it take place after the whole cast has died!"
WRITER1: "Everyone will be so choked-up they won't care what the Island was all about."
WRITER2: "Brilliant!"
SFX: wine glasses clinking together

My take on Ben..not wanting to enter the *church*...was that he knew he was not *worthy* to enter with the *good* and, or *redeemed*. Remember, he was not a passenger on the original flight.... and... at one time was one of the *evil* others. Ben never seemed to be completely *redeemed* or *forgiven*.
Enjoyed a great final episode.

Apparently my comments keep getting omitted because I voice a negative opinion. So much for free speech. A repeat from this morning: I watched the first 20 minutes of show #1 season #1 and knew it was going to be a waste of time to watch. Sounds like the show writers only had half-baked ideas for each episode thats why there seemed to be many questions unanswered – the writers never had answers to their own half-baked ideas – only trying to make another week's episode to keep it going – instead of answers they'd throw 'flashback' at you (a real great time waster' if you ask me. I would like to know how 'fat boy' never lost weight – you'd think he'd be skinny as a rail; or how about the ending – er um, wasn't that too like another movie 'Passengers' from a year or 2 ago starring Anne Hathaway? Sounds like plagiarism to me – seeing how unoriginal the writers of 'LOST' were – as in really lost! 10 thumbs down!!!

Wow. So many people still don't seem to get the polar bears. THEY WERE IN THE DHARMA POLAR BEAR CAGES ON HYDRA ISLAND!!!! Also, I think showing the wreckage on the beach during the credits was more of a metaphor. It was quiet and peaceful. Since MIB was gone, peace was brought to the island. And don't tell me I don't know good TV because you're all too lazy to think a little on your own. Almost all the answers are there, they just aren't spelled out for you. I think those people have been watching the show, but not seeing the show. Simply the best 2 1/2 hours of TV I've ever seen!

I would be frustrated that some people think they were in limbo from the beginning of the series – but I expect most of those people will watch it again and realize that they missed some key lines of dialogue. The ones that don't, well, Lost wasn't written for everyone.

I stopped watching the show because it got absolutely absurd. I've kept up briefly with blogs and other outlets. I think the cast did an outstanding job but the writers did not do anything to solve questions and mysteries like we were told they would. Waste of time.

LOST – Ok, Here's my take, sparked off something one of my employees said, and it sits well. They were not dead the entire time. they died when the hydrogen bomb went off. it accounts for everyone to that point, both dead and alive as well as the 'others', not just the passengers from the crash. thoughts?

I think someone just said they should've asked the bloggers how to end it? Yes, thats it.....the show is loved by millions because the professional television writers are all sitting around waiting for bloggers to tell them how it should go. *sarcasm* If you don't like it, write your own tv show. Or maybe you can write an entire stage production about the polar bears. Or, and I know this is crazy, You can just appeciate it for what it was and move on...but you know....probably not.

I'm telling you guys, Ben didn't die, that's why he didn't go in the church, he became keeper of the island when Hurley died and that leaves it open for a sequel. The island never sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Ben and the dog are still there!

Overall I thought the ending was decent. I think I need to watch it again for better understanding. I am confused about Jack's son. What happened to him? Was he ever real? Also, why was Aaron just being born? I am confused. lol

I can't for the life of me understand why people STILL can't get it through their heads that they did NOT die in the plane crash!! If you have watched this show for 6 seasons then the one thing you know you have to do is PAY ATTENTION. Christian explained everything in the church! They did not die in the plane crash. Everything that happened really happened. The "sideways" took place after they died. Some died before Jack and some died long after. He even went so far as to say that there is no "now" here which means that Hurley could have protected the island for thousands of years before he finally died and ended up there. The sideways was a place that they all created so that they could find all of the people that had been most important to them in life and they could all be together in the after-life. The island time ended last night with Jack dead, Hurley as the new Jacob, Ben as Hurley's advisor, Desmond, Bernard, Rose and Vincent still on the island. Kate, Claire, Sawyer, Richard, Miles, and Lapidus all left the island in the plane. The sideways was at an unknown point in the future after they all died and got together in what I think of as "Heaven's Waiting Room" before moving on. I thought the ending was amazing and beautiful and 100% not what I expected.

Ha ha and i was worried that all the articles and reader comments would ruin the ending for me (since im only up to season 5-thanks to HULU) but its all so confusing that I have no idea what any of you are talking about yet lol so it should be a good series finale

More arguments for the alternate "sideways" reality as purgatory where the characters live the lives they wish they had – Jack, he of the failed relationship with his father has a son with whom he repairs and grows his relationship. Ben, who watched his daughter die helps her with her school work as a selfless teacher, and helps John Locke whom he envied on the island. Sawyer/Ford, the con man criminal as a policeman doing the right thing with his life while still seeking answers to the person who conned his father into murder/suicide, etc.

I'm still not sure totally what to think of the episode. I've been a faithful watcher for all 6 seasons and enjoyed every minute of it. However, when I watched the finale, I felt a bit disappointed/cheated/confused. After reading some of these comments, like the alternate reality being purgatory, I have a much better grasp of what the writers were trying to do. But I do have this one question, If the hydrogen bomb went off, and then they all died and went into purgatory to "find each other", why didn't they get straight into the alternate reality/purgatory and find their constant and then go to the church with christian shepherd? Why was there all the in between stories with jacob, MIB, the light etc? (Believe me, i loved the whole jacob/MIB thing, but I'm just curious why they kept that going)

When Jack died at the end, he saw the other plane take off overhead with Sawyer, Kate, etc. They may have made it off the island and died later in life. Christian specifically said that some died before him and some died way after him. I don't think this is a case where they were dead from the beginning. It doesn't make any sense in the midst of all the theories. Therefore, they writers DID NOT lie when they said that the island was not purgatory and that they weren't all dead.

I am still wondering why, at the begining of Season 6 they showed the island underwater. I am also wondering why Ben didn't join everyone in the church. Maybe the writers left us wondering so they can make a Lost movie that will answer all the questions.

I just watched this and I totally agree with Tess. It was about Jack dying and having his friends join him into the light. Very trippy.

May 24th, 2010 6:24 pm ET

Don't you all get it? It was the sideways world which was purgetroy. Even though they all died at different times, they waited for eachother until they could go to heaven together. why do you think Kate said to jack in the car "iv'e missed you" she hasn't seen him because he died.

They did all die eventually, but it's interesting that people thought they all died at the start. Watch the ending where Christian says something to the effect of "everybody dies sometime." He also told Jack the everything Jack went through was real. The island life was real, "Locke" getting kicked off the cliff edge and finally "dying" was real, the few who made it to the plane and flying away was real. Jack died of his stab wound with Vincent at his side, and the people on the plane lived their lives and rejoined Jack after they died someday. As Christian put it, "there is no "now"..."here"." Complex in its simplicity.

At first I felt cheated. But now I think it was a very emotional and well done finale. It was always about the characters (I'm a guy!!!). I was just in shock about how it ended because of a preconceived notion of what "happily ever after" is. It turns out it was "happily ever after after"!

If I felt cheated about anything it was the character development on the island in season 6. Not many good story lines. We were so use to the characters interacting on the island and we got none of that. The Temple was a complete waste. We waited for everyone to get back together again on the island but that was too short.

As I come out of shock, I can now get on with my life. Thanks for a great show!

Yes, not all of the questions were answered. It would be nearly impossible to answer every question, and I most likely would not like all the answers, so I can deal with that.

I feel that they did not die on the initial plane crash because what Jack's Dad said, 1) they are all dead, some died before and some way after him, 2) Jack asked was this real? Reply: Yes it all was real. The episode was based on Jack's perspective, Sun and Jin died before, but Hurley lived on (telling Ben that he was a good #2) implying that they worked together on the island for a while, 3) Jack also asked why everyone was there "now", Christian said there is no "now", implying that this "heaven" transcends time and everyone came to this place to meet.

Overall I feel this was one of the best TV shows in a while, it made us think, not many shows left like that, along with losing Law and Order not a good TV week for me. Hopefully one day the majority of people will want to be truly entertained not just watch mindless reality shows. To all the haters...tell me anything close to Lost in the past 10 years on broadcast TV....not many shows come close.

I don't think they died in the crash. I think the island stuff happened and that they all died as they did on the island. Notice that the flash sideways didn't happen until after they detonated the bomb. It is very possible that is when the rest of them died and the flash sideways was created. I love how it ended because it opens up the possibilities and allows you to draw your own conclusions. I have about 3 or 4 possible theories and all of them are awesome in their own way. I think the writers were great in ending it the way they did because if they had answered every question and explained every action than they would have been dumbing it down for us and not allowing us to really think about it. With regards to the the questions about the island's secrets, processes, the why things were the way they were...the show has always, on some level, been more about Jack and his journey than anything else. What we saw was an ending for Jack. It began with him and it ended with him. The rest is open for our interpretation.

I'm somewhat torn with the finale. While I loved the closure to the characters, the mystery of the island still haunts me. What about the statue and the temple? Why could women not get pregnant on the island? What was the islands connection with Tnisia (spelling?). What were the wispers? Why were the others trying to kill the candidtates if they were controlled by Jacob? Who created the chamber where the light was held? I want to know? I feel that I left the Island with no closure other than knowing that the characters found happiness. The awakenings where amazing. I just wish they could have given me an awakening of the true mythology of the island.

There are a lot of confused critics and reporters out there who seem to have NO IDEA what happened in the finale. Before you judge the ending, take a step back and make sure you really understand what happened instead of making yourselves look more ridiculous than you are attempting to make the ending out to be

I was one of those who felt disappointed but to be truthful, I had a wee to much to drink! I just watched it again. I wasn't disappointed.

There will never be anything like this, at least in my lifetime (I'm old).
Sure there are still questions!. One of mine is; How do some of the reviews/comments think Ben took Hurley's place? I must have missed something the 2nd time around.

JJ & Company told us back in Season 1 they weren't dead. Why did they lie to us? Like others have coimmented, it was a real "hurry up & end this story" type of finale. I think the fans deserved a better ending then this lame effort they dished up. Lazy writers. Un -answered questions. Continuity errors. Commericial heavy. It did have good points, but they were overwhemed by the bad.

The writers really dropped the ball on this one. It is possible that the creator(s) were micromanaging the writers, they may have had a revolving door on writers, or it was just poor leadership with the writing staff. In any case, the overall arc was too bizarre and it was obvious that the storyline was never really thought out that well. What an utter waste of a last episode.

This is what television has come to? Six pointless seasons of a show that never really had a direction. How did it have excellent writing? The show broke all of its own rules, thus negating the drama completely. It was a joke the writers played on everyone to see how long they could sustain it without actually having anything happen. They threw every idea Hollywood has ever had into it out of desperation. Good riddance, I say.

I think the show, or maybe some of the viewers, are suffering from "Starship Troopers Syndrome". People hated that book because it didn't explain much about the war with the bugs, it was just a backdrop for the character's stories. That's what the island and all it's mysteries were. Just backdrop and set dressing. Lost was always about the characters. it was their story, not the story of the island. I thought the whole thing rather brilliant. Not one time in the whole finale was I even a little disappointed. Except maybe with FLocke. He should have suffered longer before going over the cliff, but oh well.

The mysteries of the island, including Jacob, MIB, and the million of tangents associated, were not answered. To me, a huge disappointment.

The reason I stuck around through the seasons was because of the mysteries of the island and they were not addressed in the end. Weak ass writing if you ask me. They wrote themselves into a corner and simply could not answer the questions. Smoking doobies while writing a script may be entertaining, but it ends up incoherent.

I think the writers did a great job of suckering most of us into a show they had no clue from the beginning where it was going and that is why the questions were not fully answered. It was brilliant to end it the way they did because most of us are suckers for emotional endings like that. They were dead but had happy reunions with their loved ones. Nobody would care that there was no real explanation of the island and what was really happening there because you get caught up in the emotions.

In the end to me it was like the movie Jacob's Ladder. None of the stuff on the island or in the alternate world happened. They all died instantly in the first plane crash. They were told so many times by so many people that there were already dead. The wonder and relief that everyone felt when they realized what was going on is that they were dead and were finally getting to pass on to the bright light (heaven). Jack was the last to realize what was going on, but he too was happy to pass on. The final scene of the plane was the original plane crash, but just a crash, no constructed shelters etc., just a plane crash. So it was a very bitter sweet ending, sad that they all died, but glad that the spirits worked out what they needed to in order to pass to the other side.

Lost was a great triumph for the television entertainment industry. From the pilot episode through the series finale last night, the mysteries and stories were all created for one reason, to keep us involved and watching so ultimately, we would be subjected to the commercials during the show. Television 101. There was so much filler in the early seasons that there wasn't enough time to adress all the garbage added solely as viewer bait. Lost succeeded in every way a great television show should, they kept us watching, and watching and watching. I wish all Television was this classy, the world would be a better place.. Cheers to a great story.

People's reactions to the ending reflect more about them than about the show. Feel sorry for those who got little out of it. What could have been more disappointing than wrapping all the mysteries up with a neat little bow. That solution is for children and is nothing like life. After all – what are we all doing here?

Poor writers, you can’t please everyone. We all have different ways of seeing life. You (the viewer) have to use your own life experience and imagination to answer the questions that you feel were left untouched.

Yes, Christian did say that the island was real. That was one of the main questions answered. So, for all you angry fans that thought the writers lied you need to watch the show again.

What an awesome idea to have a group of people so connected in life that they created a place to wait for each other until they go to heaven. It seemed clear to me that this was “purgatory” as you watched each of the characters meet in the sideways world (as they died in life) in the and realize the connection they had with that person in life. It suggests that why you are awaiting your family and friends you do not need to suffer with the memories of them and agonize over missing them.

I think part of the problem is most people think the writers were supposed to be providing them a personal ending because they think the world revolves around only them. You people need to step back and volunteer to help people in need so you can see what life is all about.

Chris:
Michael wasn't at the church because he is still a ghost on the island. Walt got off the island years earlier and is alive in the "real" world (as is Aaron and Sun and Jin's baby). Vincent was left on the island with Rose and Bernard.
I was confused and sad after the show ended. My two children, ages 18 and 20, have been watching the show with me since the beginning. They understood the show much better than me. My son told me that just like the characters on Lost had to let go and move on, so do we. It's going to take time for that to happen...
Lost will always be my favorite show, with characters I grew to care about and music that touched my heart. Thank you to everyone associated with making Lost. It will always remain an original, never giving in to the pressure from the networks or fans. Always following their own journey. Just like we must do.

I love the entire series. I think that what is funny about everyone's valid opinions is that we are either a man/woman of faith or of science. It was the writers' story, just like Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Who are we to judge someone's writing and story telling? We did not think of it, they did. The story as a whole stuck true to the major themes of character driven (island was backdrop), redemption and love.

It really does not matter what was Walt's story, which seems to be a big issue. Nor why was Penny or Desmond there and not Michael (which was explained that he could not leave the island when Hurley talked to him a few episodes back).

My overall point, for those who continue to read my post, is that the story of redemption of these characters and for them to be able to love and be loved was the ultimate ending.

I hope others see it that way. But then again I also got the Soprano's ending.

It was a fun show but they killed the legacy with the end. It will end up being mocked waaaaay more than revered (just watch history prove me right).

one thing is to not clean stuff up or miss some questions (as the audience has invested enough time to come to their own conclusions about those questions left unanswered) but the show gave you no plausibility on many, many things.

As an example, the golden glow and energy (whatever it is) in the middle of the island could have been the electromagnetic nexus of a parallel universe where the smoke monsters come from or where all the combined leprechauns on earth pack and store their pixie dust in between St Patrick’s day.

It could literally be either of those two things or anything else in between.

Maybe they can make a Lost movie called “Lost: the return of the Leprechauns” see…..the mocking has already started…

Ok, here's the deal. These people on the island were all "broken" people in some way, shape or form. Especially Jack. Through the island experience (real or not), they learned to live as if their lives depended upon it and to trust others. From the ending, it also looks like the learned the most important thing (dead or alive) would be love.

Lost is filled with so many philosophical, religious, and mythological references, it might be wise to ponder its themes from outside the mindset of Christianity. I'm starting to study Buddhism, and I can see many Buddhist ideas playing themselves out, and not just the obvious references to the Dharma Initiative (there was a Buddha statue in the church in last night's episode). Besides, since the writers introduced so many themes and paid such great attention to the details of the show, like the books that were read, the art on the walls, etc., does anyone really think that they would boil the whole show down to one theme (they are all dead, on their way to heaven, etc.), then spend 6 years trying to distract us from that one theme. Even though they might have been able to come up with a better ending or wrap up a few loose ends, I'm giving the writers a little more credit for creating a story to make us think. The references to Christianity, Buddhism, philosophy, mysticism, etc. are there for a reason – think about it, but don't be too certain you know the complete story.

I watched every episode and loved the Final ending. I teared up a bit and loved that they did not answer every question. I glad to see such wonderful character development in a show. All the characters in the show seemed so "Lost" on their own but connected so well with each other on the island. I just hope they do not have a spin-off series and leave LOST alone.

When I saw the empty casket and realized Jack was dead, I got pretty worked up. I was really hoping for a good explanation to the sideways flashes, and I knew I wasn't going to get that. But as I spent a sleepless night putting things together, I realized that the finale was quite well done... the way everyone's sideways flashes tied in to events from the island. I especially enjoyed the way it ended the way it began, with Jack laying in the exact same spot as he was at the very beginning. Brilliant.

I am not a fan of pretty little packages, which is why I loved the ending....the whole point is that life is limbo....nothing is black and white, not everyone was alive, not everyone was dead and I'm my own grandma.

sheesh. It's TELEVISION. The world is falling apart, go volunteer at a homeless shelter or foodbank on Tuesday nights (or any other night) now that it's over....make a difference in the world.....and let go of that which you can't control.

If you can take that away from the show, it will have been worth a six year investment, no?

..humm...
and what about all the people the Penny's father brought on the island during the last few episodes?
are they dead or alive?
if they are alive, how do they interact with dead people?
answer: the island is a place where the two worlds can merge

people who died keep coming back as visions (see previous seasons, like when Jack keeps seeing his father in jacob's cabin and among the trees) – sometimes the characters are aware of their situation, sometimes not, as the island behavior confuses things around..

about religion: the window behind Christian Shepperd has the 6 main symbols of 6 main religions/philosophies, so the writers wanted to create a main place, where who you are/was or you believe, is not important: we are all going to die, good/evil, black/white....

Jack cries when he finds out he's dead. Try to think as a conscious existence, a continuos stream of life/energy/soul... the body is just an intermediary state.

better than any secret revealed or not, is the message under LOST.

All the character were tied up together, even in the alternate reality.
Life is not only what you see, but also what you feel, what people around you feel and the mesh that those energies can create.

I knew we were in trouble when they started introducing new, never before seen characters in the first few minutes of the so-called finale! I just thought" this cannot end well. They don't know how to finish this", and I was right. Purgatory, not purgatory, I just don't care anymore. A wasted mess, and I'm just glad it's over. Writers, directers, producers, now you can get "LOST".

Jack's dad said it at the end. Everything that happened was real. Jake wanted to know how his dad was there and his dad said how are u here and Jack said because I'm dead. He then asked about everyone else and his dad said that everyone died, some before him and some after. So some of them could have died of old age.
So basically when Jack died everyone that cared about him was there to greet him regardless to when they died.

It was a great series. Too bad the writers didnt know how to end it and copped out with the flash sideways, with them being dead. It might as well have been a dream, like in Dallas. Oh well, not many answers either. Pathetic!

*** This is how the show should have ended***
We pan out from the island and zoom to a park in the middle of the mid west somewhere. The 1st thing we see is a short bus that reads. "Special Needs Center For Compassion" As the camera pans over we see a group of Down Syndrome kids that all resemble our main characters on Lost. They are all running around the park pretending to be saving the "Island". One of them has a black trash bag tied around his shoulders like a cape. The shows goes to slow motion as the kid running towards the camera yells "Yay.... I'm the black smoke monster" Yaayyyyyy..

This show has been a gigantic turd since episode 2. That's when I stopped watching it. I knew it would turn into an enormous time suck and that no ending would ever address this mess of a program.

For quite some time I've said to friends, the ending will be a disappointment; there is no way to explain this show's particular brand of lunacy. It was a Twilight Zone episode stretched so far beyond its premise, that no one knew how to finish it off.

To those of you sucked into this hellhole, congrats on wasting 120 hours of your life.

This was not a video game or sci-fi comic book--different media folks-
This was a character driven story from episode one. It took us on a wild action ride–but what mattered was - life and people and how to find meaning in it all

Many people have argued that the whole time it was purgatory and that the end was Jack dying the day the series started, on the day of the plane crash. I don't believe that it was all a dream. I don't feel cheated.

Here is my synopsis: The ending plays in to both ideas of purgatory and life on and off the island. The finale never once says that they were dead all along. I disagree with this. But in the end, it is all what the viewer believes.

Christian explains to Jack that they all exist in the way that each character remembers. By the end of the finale. They all remembered one another as how they existed on the island. So how can the island never of happened? Because it very well could have happened. So the island could have been real in the end. The sideways world that was seen all season shows this. They were all still connected, either on the island or off. I think this is what the show is about. Regardless if they lived or died, they would have been apart of one another's life. It is too easy to assume they we always dead. The island very well could have been real and I would not say it was purgatory.

Christian explains that they needed one another to remember one another. That is why they have gathered at the place "they" created. They were all very much apart of the lives of those on the island. He also says that they everyone dies at different times, so this, to me suggests that the island was real, some died there and others died off the island. But regardless how one another dies, they come back together in the end.

Additionally, Hurley thanks Ben for being his number 2. This tells me that they did live on the island for some time. Desmond's work in the Sideways world brings everyone back together by the end of it.

This action is brings me to my conclusion about the island. I think that in this sideways world, he was an angel brining the souls together of those lost ones. So in tern, the sideways world is actually purgatory. This is where the souls needed help coming back together, to remember, in order to move forward!

Everything was real. It does not need explanation. It all happened. For me, Jack died on the island in the final scene and those people did get off it. There are too many things that happened along the way for it to always be Purgatory!

But that is the beauty of the show. Depending on what you believe, you can argue either side, and neither will be wrong.

1.) Jacob was the only one prior to Jack who could make people immortal. Richard was immortal but never mentioned or stated he could make others the same nor did he.

2.) Jacob said the incantation before hand. Jack did not.

3.) Jack made Hurely drink the water after losing his powers or, when he was mortal.

4.) Symbolically, Jacob made Jack drink clear water from a tin cup. Hurley drank dirty water from an old plastic bottle.

5.) Something to think about. OK, was Aaron unfulfilled as an adult, so he got to go with his mom to the afterlife? Or is it that Aaron just died and got to go with the one he loved, his mother. Why does this matter? Kate's daughter. If it's simply that you get to go the the afterlife with those you love, Kate's daughter should have gone too if this included people who died in the past and the future. But she wasn't there (if she wasn't there because she was unfulfilled in her future life, this would blow the theory up).

Why is this an issue? If Kate's daughter didn't go because she wasn't dead yet but Hurley and Linus were dead (they were at the Church), were they only given mortaility for a few years? It's much more likely they were never given it at all.

You people that are whining about the ending because it didn't explain to you what the island is should try watching the show sometime. In the episode that focused on Richard's history, Jacob very clearly explained what the island was with the wine bottle metaphor. The island was basically a prison containing "hell, evil, malevolence" etc. from getting out and destroying the world. There is a certain amount of spirituality and mysticism to this show, so why would everything be laid out in a neat, easy explanation?

You all sit there and type your angry messages on your computers. Do you know exactly how all the inner workings of your computer combine to allow it to function? I don't, and most of you don't either. But it does work and it's what you do on the computer that really matters. The island is the same.

Lost was about letting go and moving on which all characters had an issue in their lives that they could not let go of and they relaized this in the alternate univerise which was a second stage to entering the afterlife, a way to solve some unfinshed bussines in ones life. This ways prelevent in Jacks dad, who is dead, talking to him and walking into Heaven, which can't be done in our deminsion. But why didn't they all follow Jacks dad into Heaven? When he opened the door they all sat down instead of walking into Heaven with him....mmm. The island did happen as Jacks father told him that all the people in the church where there becasue Jack had died and all of the Oceanic survivors where the ones who had impacted his live the most (Where's the dog at).

So fine, they didn't all die in the initial plane crash. Who cares?!? If the island was real the entire time then this ending is dumber than I thought. They choose not to address any of the Island mysteries. Isn't that why we watched the show in the first place. What is the island? Is it where peter pan lives? So Fing dumb. What a cop out! How can you have 6 seasons of TV about this mystery island that has black smoke men and Polar Bears. And never answer the biggest question of all, What is the island? Ultimately the finale ignored the island and basically focussed on this magic meeting place before transitioning to heaven. So Lame!!
*** This is how the show should have ended***
We pan out from the island and zoom to a park in the middle of the mid west somewhere. The 1st thing we see is a short bus that reads. "Special Needs Center For Compassion" As the camera pans over we see a group of Down Syndrome kids that all resemble our main characters on Lost. They are all running around the park pretending to be saving the "Island". One of them has a black trash bag tied around his shoulders like a cape. The shows goes to slow motion as the kid running towards the camera yells "Yay.... I'm the black smoke monster" Yaayyyyyy..

May 24th, 2010 7:47 pm ET
So fine, they didn't all die in the initial plane crash. Who cares?!? If the island was real the entire time then this ending is dumber than I thought. They choose not to address any of the Island mysteries. Isn't that why we watched the show in the first place. What is the island? Is it where peter pan lives? So Fing dumb. What a cop out! How can you have 6 seasons of TV about this mystery island that has black smoke men and Polar Bears. And never answer the biggest question of all, What is the island? Ultimately the finale ignored the island and basically focussed on this magic meeting place before transitioning to heaven. So Lame!!
*** This is how the show should have ended***
We pan out from the island and zoom to a park in the middle of the mid west somewhere. The 1st thing we see is a short bus that reads. "Special Needs Center For Compassion" As the camera pans over we see a group of Down Syndrome kids that all resemble our main characters on Lost. They are all running around the park pretending to be saving the "Island". One of them has a black trash bag tied around his shoulders like a cape. The shows goes to slow motion as the kid running towards the camera yells "Yay.... I'm the black smoke monster" Yaayyyyyy..

After reading many of the comments on the finale of ‘LOST’, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are basically two groups of people who have chosen to share their points of view. The first are able to look within themselves for answers and, having found them, are able to move on satisfied with their journey of self-discovery. The others are apparently bereft of any trace of a soul and are relegated to wandering the island whispering to themselves waiting for their version of Jacob to hand them a cup full of answers.

The story of love and redemption could have been told in any setting. To set it on an Island loaded with mysteries and never answer those questions was a let down. Why have them it they were ultimately meaningless?

I don't believe any of you would have committed yourself as much to a show which was simply based on faith, friendship, and character development. Without the science, the mystery, and mythology, this show would not have survived the first season. While I love the show, I feel very disappointed that virtually nothing was explained. I wasn't looking for the answers to it all, but at least some of the key ones would have helped me sleep. So don't lie to yourselves, a bunch of characters on an island after a plane crash would have caused you to turn the channel if not for the question "what is the island". We still don't know and that sucks.

So fine, they didn't all die in the initial plane crash. Who cares?!? If the island was real the entire time then this ending is dumber than I thought. They choose not to address any of the Island mysteries. Isn't that why we watched the show in the first place. What is the island? Is it where peter pan lives? So Fing dumb. What a cop out! How can you have 6 seasons of TV about this mystery island that has black smoke men and Polar Bears. And never answer the biggest question of all, What is the island? Ultimately the finale ignored the island and basically focussed on this magic meeting place before transitioning to heaven. So Lame!!
*** This is how the show should have ended***
We pan out from the island and zoom to a park in the middle of the mid west somewhere. The 1st thing we see is a short bus that reads. "Special Needs Center For Compassion" As the camera pans over we see a group of Down Syndrome kids that all resemble our main characters on Lost. They are all running around the park pretending to be saving the "Island". One of them has a black trash bag tied around his shoulders like a cape. The shows goes to slow motion as the kid running towards the camera yells "Yay.... I'm the black smoke monster" Yaayyyyyy..

Geez, people, it was clearly spelled out. Everything on the island happened. It was said several times. They DID NOT all die from the plane crash. I mean how could they have chosen to be together in the last scene if they all died? They wouldn't have even known each other. They didn't before landing on the island. The only thing that wasn't "real" was the sideways world.

Lots of questions about two items:
1. Why didn't Jack and/or Desmond become a smoke monster after going into the cave with the light? I believe that when the "stepmother" warned Jacob not to go into the cave, it was the kind of exaggerated scary warning you give to kids to keep them from messing around with something that could have dire ramifications. Or, perhaps it is only possible, but not guaranteed, that going in there turns you into a smoke monster, based on whether or not you have some capacity for evil in your soul. I think she always recognized that attribute in MIB and probably had that herself, as she murdered their real mom ostensibly for the purpose of "adopting" a couple of replacement candidates. Remember, "stepmom" was very likely a smoke monster herself.

2. Why was Aaron not supposed to be raised by another? Assuming the psychic who said that was legit, perhaps he had some premonition that it could be a piece in the larger puzzle that was the struggle to get off the island. Remember, the fact that Claire had lost Aaron made her go kind of crazy and team up with Locke. Although this is not a disaster in itself, the more allies he has the more likely he wins and the escapes the island, causing the light to go out everywhere.

All in all I thought it was a solid ending and not every single technical detail needs to be answered. I definitely will miss it.

I like many of you have been with the show since the beginning. I agree with one of the 1st comments that it didnt necessarily answer all the questions, but it answered some of the most important or significant....specifically, I still dont know where the Polar Bear came from ..LoL! But overall I was more than satisfied, I think the best part for me was to see all the characters start to have flashback memories with those that they had the deep connections with after they touched! I will admit that I did get a little emotional! As far as the ending goes, everyone has to die right.. and I though it was great how in the end they all came together!! Best finale ever! We will see what happens with 24 tonight!!

By the way.
To everyone who is asking about Jack's son; as Locke pointed out, Jack didn't have a son. This was part of his made up reality while waiting in 'purgatory'. That's why he wasn't at the party and also why you didn't see him in the church at the end.

"What I find disturbing as I read through some of these posts is that people are taking fiction and somehow relating it to reality in the Biblical sense. Folks, this was just a show. What the Bible teaches about death is nothing like "Lost". There is no purgatory, no literal place of eternal torment. If you want to learn the truth about what happens when we die, then simply read and study the Bible. It's that simple. But for heavens sake don't take a fictional show and think that it is truth."

Al, Lindelof and Cuse already said that biblical stories, along with mythology and fantasy, helped them develop their universe. They regard themselves as "Men of Faith". It's not completely biblical but it definitely has some unmistakable key references.

I'm amazed that anyone would think the writers lazy. It's very apparent from the complexity of the storyline, not to mention the numerous philosophical and spiritual references, that they are far from lazy. The issue appears to me to be with people who are used to having simplistic storylines handed to them and really don't enjoy the challenge of intellectual stimulation or thinking. I think there is plenty of information to answer nearly all the questions that one may raise about LOST although it may take a little effort to do so. There is also something to be said for tolerance for ambiguity and the potential to add ones own interpretation lends the show to discussion outside of the living room.

The writers should be ashamed of themselves....it took them 6 years to take us to this ending? I'll NEVER start watching another JJ Abrams show, because once he inevitably gets bored and moves on, his flunkies wreck everything. 'Alias' anyone? 😦

Jack's father explained that time in "limbo" had no meaning here. People there died before Jack and AFTER Jack.. so Kate, Sawyer and the rest could have gotten off the island went home and died Years later. Once Jack Died, Hurley took the mantle of watching the island with Ben helping him (being his #2)... so when Hurley's time to go came YEARS, decades, centuries later he was ready, but perhaps Ben took over which was why he wasn't ready to "let go" just yet..

I personally liked the ending, one question I had was since "limbo" was made by the combined memories and feelings of everyone Jack was close to I can see that Jin and Sun would be pregnant, as well as Claire but is that the spirit of Erin shown in baby form in Claire's hands or just a memory\feeling? Yup... I liked the end because they still get you to think about things. GREAT Job!!!

Yes Christian said there is no time in the Sideways place. Time was weird on the island too. What all you geniuses use as proof that everything that happened on the island was real, you take from a dead person who just told dead Jack he was "real" and all the dead people in the church were "real". So if he says all the dead people are "real" and all the "dead people's" experiences were "real" then how is that proof their life on the island was real.

Other proof you give is that how could Ana Lucia and others be killed on the island if they were already dead, yet in the sideways world where everyone is dead we see Sayid kill Keamy who is already dead.

Lastly, in the flash forwards of the Oceanic Six Hurley is visited by the ghost of Ana Lucia and Charlie. Both no they are dead, yet many years later they show up in the Sideways world still dead but they now don't remember they're dead. Does that mean that Jack, Kate and all the other Losties spent some time in LA as ghosts prior to forgetting they were dead and moving to the sideways?

Whatever happened to Michael and Walt:? I did not see them in the church at the end. Or did I miss something somewhere as I haven't been watching every episode? Also, why would Kate change her dress at the end? She was wearing something different inside. I think that was bad editing. Overall, I was a little disappointed with the ending as it still left some questions unanswered. But, I expected that.

No they did not die in the crash. It doesnt matter which really took place.
Both the island events and the sideways story were lived by all of the characters and were real to them. So essentially both did occur.
I love this conundrum and I am really glad that the creators left us with something to discuss, argue and think about for years to come.
All time greatest series ending. Way to go!!!

"The ending was a disappointment. I agree, the writers should have turned to the blogs for an original thought on ending the show."

I think this comment sort of says it all about people who hated the Lost Finale. All these bloggers and self described Lost experts formed their own opinions on how the show should end. For them, watching the finale was not about the end of this special show, but about validating that their opinion on the Lost answers and how the series finale should go were right. When they were proved wrong, their reaction is, "Well, that was crap".

Good thing the writers didn't consult people like this, or the series ending truly would have been terrible. It wasn't perfect, it didn't answer all the questions but it was an honest effort at coming up with an ending and many found it satisfying.

I mean geeze, if you want to complain about a terrible season finale, how about Battlestar Galactica. Now, that was a truly terrible piece of television. Many of the comments about the Lost ending would definitely apply to BG and it actually deserves the criticism.

@KisaSkee mentioned in the story claimed to have known about them being in purgatory the entire time, which I find out since they weren't actually in purgatory until season 6 in the alternate timeline. They DIDN"T DIE from the crash and everything that happened to them actually happened.

I thought it was crap. I'd watched Lost consistantly for several seasons and then lost interest as it became clear the writers had no direction and were just making it up as they went. No plan, no concept of why or how this all happened, just a jumbled, rambling dream-like story that quit making sense.

I can't believe so many are giving the writers credit for dragging you along their disjointed tale of nonsense. I used to love Lost, but Lost lost it's course and floundered seasons ago.

Flashforwards and flashsideways were used by the writers to fill space. They didn't need to keep the story straight (they failed at this before the flashforwards/flashsideways anyway). They could just make it up and not worry about it. They knew you'd follow and praise them for it. I'm glad I quit watching three years ago. No regrets. The show had such potential and the writers wasted it all.

I don't understand the 'We need our answers team', or the people that say it was a cop out. There was NO way all the answers would've been given to anyone's degree of satisfaction, so why try – what's more important, that you have your theory scorecard right or that you had an emotional investment built off good writing centered around themes and characters that ended centered around theme's and characters.

As to the people that say this was a cop out, the 'we knew it from all along' kind of people – I don't know what show they were watching. If Lost had ended w/o the last 10 minutes, w/ Hurley/Ben being the new rulers of the island, Desmond still there but getting ready to go home, and the rest of the people getting off – NO ONE would've guessed that's how it ended, but in the "real" Lost world (Seasons 1-5, 6 non-alt) that's how it did end. So save it – you couldn't have guessed it, you're just trying to look for an excuse not to be lumped into the first group.

First and foremost the show has been about characters. If you want explanation, don't moan about the episode, 'Across the Sea', b/c lots of people seemed to dislike that one but it was straight up answers.

This was emotional and beautiful, and a great way to end a great show. Loved it!

The ending is just perfect. It is bitter sweet. Not everything needs to be answered, so that allows our imagination to fill in the blanks. I was shock when Jack asked Christian "Why I can see you? Are you real?" And Christian asked Jack back "Why do you think you see me?" Jack was like "Because I am dead". My jaw just droped. I was in complete shock and it this the BEST twist ever! I am still sad and trying to adjust life without LOST. I don't think anything is just as good. I WILL MISS LOST...

I thoroughly enjoyed every episode from beginning to end. What a great show!

What I find disturbing as I read through some of these posts is that people are taking fiction and somehow relating it to reality in the Biblical sense. Folks, this was just a show. What the Bible teaches about death is nothing like "Lost". There is no purgatory, no literal place of eternal torment. If you want to learn the truth about what happens when we die, then simply read and study the Bible. It's that simple. But for heavens sake don't take a fictional show and think that it is truth.

First off I like Abram's work, Cloverfield, Star Trek, Fringe. I understand the nuances of the finale, but am a bit disappointed in some aspects, may seem like nitpicking to most...

How did Ben get freed up so quick from that log that was on him, when the combined efforts of everyone there could not even budge it?

How did Kate change clothes so quick in the church (better yet, where did she get the clothes)?

So the island, the smoke monster, even all the action on Hydra island, was just a sidenote. It seems to me that the finale was a copout in some ways. I always felt the writers were struggling to keep a plot line going through 6 seasons. Sure they picked their conclusion and dove right in at the beginning of season 6. However, I was just as interested in the island as I was the people on it. That is where I was left a bit underwhelmed.

Great ending. I was shocked but it was well done, totally turning everything on its head in the last few minutes. Everything on the Island happened for real. The sideways was a waiting place that they had somehow created themselves so they can find each other before passing over into the next life. Michael was not there because his soul was to stay trapped on the Island forever whispering, as he said on JKL. Vincent is a dog so he doesn't count. Walt perhaps wasn't ready to pass into the next life, he may not be dead yet, or he had already passed over. As far as Jack not being the smoke monster, perhaps he didn't turn into the smoke because he had Jacob's powers? MIB was a regular human when he was thrown in therefore transforming him, plus maybe he transformed due to his darker nature. Jack and Desmond were protected because they had special powers. Thats my best guess.

Even with all the atheists out there, you can hardly deny that the spiritual bent to the show (along with the relationships) made this a pretty cool event. Whether you believe or not, faith makes for powerful story lines.

Well I didnt get to watch the final five minutes until the next day and went to bed confident that the sideways time line was the true line; they all met and as the island and those on slowly devolved and it ran out their timeline When that happened there was a magnetic transfer of their experiences to their new sideways existance. Remember this happened after the bomb went off and put the island and those on it into a slowly evolving ending. As each of them died on the island, their memories were transferred to the 'new' timline where everyone realized who they were supposed to be with.......and they all lived happily ever after! The last episode was a Shakesperean love story.
Then somebody said they were all dead?! I think they all lived and walked out of the church into the bright sunlight with the knowledge and experiences of what had happened to them on the island. And life went on.
Just couldn't figure out what they would do with Jack's son in the new timeline. Guess he was adopted by Jack and Kate! I would expect that they would great the guys on the airplane when they were rescued. Should have put the dog on the plane too though.

Oh common people. Everybody died. In fact the "action" and cyclical stories from episode #1 to the end had everyone dupped to expect more explanations?

I admire the writers and actors abilities and that they were able to stretch out across many seasons a series of plots, subplots, replots and such but we all should have seen the "dead" ending coming.

Like most series when they come to end the devoted audience of followers will voice disapointment but they will have gained back control of their life, schedule and thought once again and rediscovered their own families and friends with the new spare time.

Remember, the final episode was a "dead" ending, as in everyone WAS dead long ago but finally the writers show the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak and we can all go about our business.

I still think my ending idea had merit. Suddenly, everyone wakes up aboard the original plane and nothering bad happens to them at all. They just go on with their lives. No flashes in any direction AND no memories. None. A more fitting memory perhaps? The rest is history as they say.

I say it took long enough for the writers to stop thinking up random ideas of tropical Polar bears, black clouds ,and alternate universes. I liked the show at the start but they kept throwing in so much crap that if you missed an episode you became totally LOST.......pun intended

While I do not believe the same as some people that jack was the son of god or any of that.. What i saw was simple. Everyone in the Church was dead. IT doesn't matter when they died. People when they die don't wait years for their loved ones to join them, it just happens in the blink of an eye. Thats why Jack couldn't see what was going on till he died. And it was not all the people from the plane or the island because its who jack wanted in heaven with him, His family and friends. Well thats how I saw it.

Jack did not say the incantation over the water because it solidified Hurley's transformation. There was no way of knowing whether what Jack did made Hurley like Jack. There was no incantation, there was no indication that Jack was given the power to pass it on to someone, and Jack did it at a time where both him and Locke were apparently mortal...no powers.

But this was the great thing about the Hurley de-reconstruction: he fully accepted the role, void of any doubt or cynicism. He had something in Jack that he had never had before...a complete faith. Hurely was a great character because he was so unique but we got to see him deconstruct, from being the luckiest guy in the world, to losing everything, to having to then believe the words of a ghost, to then convincing others to believe him. He went from believing that he could rely on his own universal luck and,essentially, himself to actually putting his faith into something else, something unexplained, something riduculous and illogical but something he learned to be real.

The real telling episode was when Jack followed Hurley even when he knew that Hurley was lying about Jacon supposedly giving him instructions. Jack said that he did it because he trusted him, regardless. When it came right down to it, Hurley implicitly trusted, put his faith in a mortally wounded man who was going into a well to save the World. He gave his complete faith to Jack and was transformed.

This makes the notion of Jack annoiting Hurley all the more fascninating. Hurley showed an unwavering trust to protect the island, although there was no clear evil anymore to protect it from, no guarantee he would get off the island, hell, no guarantee that he was immortal. There was zero guarantee that he would be providing any significant role. Yet, he left the cynicism and doubt behind: he just relied upon faith. And when he told Jack that he had faith in him, we completely believed that Hurley him. He believed it so much, in fact he even signed on a disciple...

If the "no crash" parallel world was "limbo" and the island was real, then why were Kate, Sawyer and the rest on Lapidus's plane flight ready to "leave" or "move on"? And why did Hurley and Ben exchange "You were a great #1/#2!" compliments? And if there is no "now" in the parallel world, why did Jack miss the concert?

It all best fits if they all died in the Oceanic 815 crash, but the LOST souls who weren't ready for the afterlife wen't to/became the Island, met other lost souls there, and that became the temporary "proving ground" or "purgatory" or "hell" to finish preparing them. After all, several episodes ago Richard said something like, "Don't you get it? This is hell!"

The final scene of the undisturbed plane wreck showed what really happened after the crash.

Like "The X-Files" they blithely came up with new "mysteries" every time they got a bit bogged down, trying to convince us that in the end all would be resolved. And then they came up with something many of us had guessed in Series One. It's a lazy solution, because once you create "limbo" all bets are off. The reason these things weren't explained finally was that the writers themselves had no clue how to explain them. As happened with "The X-Files" too. The finales of both series kind of worked, if you hadn't been paying attention. And they hoped that an emotional charge would gloss over the huge story gaps.

LA: Anna Lucia was the cop that let Kate and Sayid go after Hurley paid them off. I guess that Anna, Mr Eko, Michael, Walt and finally, Ben who refused to go inside were not ready to "move on."
Aaron was just born in the Flash Sideways or Flash up, and thus was not yet the age he was in 2007. I would suspect that soon after moving on, he would be allowed to be older, because by this time even he would have died. The fact that the island was underwater means that it could be the end of time in our world or some time in the far future when somebody else sank the island. Remember, in the Flash Sideways time had no meaning...hard to understand, but it was implied that Hurley and Ben went on to protect the island (maybe for hundreds if not thousands of years) and arrived in the Flash sideways the exact time Jack did, the exact same time as Anna Lucia did, Boone, Shannon, etc...

For all those believing the island was not purgatory and actual events took place... wow- and you STILL liked the ending? What was the island? Were any questions answered?? You should be angrier at the writers than the rest of us! At least purgatory answers (cheaply) the outrageously ridiculous and foolish things thrown into the script over the years. Disappointed...disillusioned...disenchanted. Dis'd.
Cheap and easy out. I think this proves what people thought all along..the writers are just making this up week by week as they go.

Watching the end of Lost made me sad as it marked the end of an epic six years of television. Reading people's comments on the finale of Lost, however, has made me even sadder. Sad not for the loss of a great show, but sad for how remarkably unintelligent a large portion of this country is. That some people were unable to grasp even those portions of the show that were explicitly spelled out last night is mind-boggling. The complete lack of comprehension of what happened last night is tragic, but fully explains why people still seek answers to those things that the show has already answered (or those things that are simply obvious, like Walt ceasing to be important because he hit puberty too soon).

It was symbolic. Jack Shepherd=Jesus the Shepherd. Christian Shepherd=God. Father and Son. Jack was a martyr, like Jesus, risked his own life for the survivor's salvation. At the end of the episode where you see that Jack had died, Bernard and Rose's dog laid next to him. Jack the Shepherd had a lamb that followed him all this time and was going to continue to follow him until his death. There were many biblical references this season, Jacob and his brother had a Kane and Able story, and a little bit of an Adam and Eve story combined. They were taught not to fight, but to love one another, they were the best of friends, but then Jacob wound up killing his brother in spite of his brother's actions. He broke the other rule and had sent his brother into the light that they were suppose to have protected and there had been a curse forever on that island until Jacob died, which led to the death of the Smoke Monster (his brother). I believe that the finale of LOST may not have answered all the questions that you wanted to find an answer to, but that it made you think and create your own opinions of the show, something that the writers' would have wanted the entire time.

Wow – it's amazing – every single person who didn't like the ending didn't seem to actually pay attention to the ending. Wow.

Flash News Folks – everything that happened on the Island happened and Jack died after Locke/MIB stabbed him. Nothing was anyone's imagination (other than the show's creators) nor were they dead from the start. I suggest folks go back and watch the show more carefully. (although I thought they did a great job of making it clear)

Here is a clip from afterlife 101... a definition of reincarnation. Remember when Christian Shepherd says "this is the place you have all chosen to meet"

I don't subscribe to reincarnation, but the writers were pulling from a variety of philosophical and religious references.

Group reincarnation

Sometimes it is believed a number of spirits, let's say in the same family grouping in heaven, reincarnate simultaneously into lives that will have a great deal of interaction.

Question:
Is this so, and how is this organized so that a group can reincarnate together?

Yes, this is so, and how it is done is just by knowing that there will be life experiences where these individuals will cross paths, sometimes it will be very intense and very involved and other times it will be just passing through each others lives but leaving a great impact upon one another. It is not something that can alway be understood but as you have recently experienced there are certain individuals you feel a much stronger bond with than others and that is because you have come from the same spiritual families and your paths are crossing, whether it be again for such a very brief period or you are to come involved and share a strong intimate friendship.

Question:
How will they recognize each other on earth?

It is recognized by this feeling of a connection, of a bond that says I know you, which is reached many times on a subconscious level that you, as a human, can't even understand. Sometimes it is individuals who come into your life who you might not feel a bonding with but you feel you are learning a lesson from that person for a reason. Or rather, sometimes it can be an uncomfortable feeling around that person, more than you would feel around another person. And it's because you are sharing lessons together.

I really believe the island is the reality and the flash sideways was the limbo phase to their "crossover" moment, in which they realize how to let go. Remember the first or second episode of the first season when Jack says," we have to learn to live together , or die alone." ? I think they were there on this mysterious journey together and they all died at different times. Their journey on the island was them learning how to live together and they learned how to love and have these life changing relationships that changed them forever. They were at the church waiting for the rest of them to come together. The fact that there are all these unanswered questions that remain are supposed to be irrevelant.

if you didn't understand the whole-picture, existential themes involved that can relate to everyone in the world and the atrocities and bumpy stages in life – you're obviously paying attention to the mundane details like kate's dress changing, or where the statue came from, or what MIB's name was. none of that mattered.

i'd recommend everyone to read the following and then re-watch Lost:
Shakespeare's "The Tempest"
Dante's "Inferno"
and the freaking Bible

if you don't understand it then, you're obviously too dense to pick up on anything like this, so just watch 2 and 1/2 men.

Everyone stop pushing your close minded opinion as though there is an absolute right or wrong. You watched b/c you fall into one of four camps:
A) "character-driven" – you are probably female if you fall in this camp (sorry to stereotype)and you liked or loved the finale
B) "religious/spirituality-driven" – you probably liked or loved the finale because of the purgatory/heaven angles
C) "action-driven" – probably male (see prior disclaimer) – and you were luke-warm or hated the finale because you received no answers to your "island" questions
D) "sci-fi-driven" – you DEFINITELY hated the finale because you were told for 6 years this was not about anything related to purgatory. Ha-ha, suckers!

So, now that you have self identified yourself, you can stop trying to convince people from other camps that you are right and they are wrong. Get over it. And by the way, I am a "C" and hated the ending.

The very last scene was excellent... Jack dying in the same spot that he woke up in during the pilot with Vincent by his side. The whole idea that he died saving the Island and the "sideways" world was his purgatory was worth the wait. As was seeing that he would spend eternity with the people who meant the most to him. Unfortunately, I felt the whole final season including most of finale was rushed and had none of the heart that the series had for the first five seasons. Instead of tying up lose ends, it simply gave us more questions.

At the end of season #1, I was looking for answers to several questions including what the Monster was, who were The Others and what was special about Walt & Aaron. Plus the NUMBERS, the reason Hurley went to Australia, Danielle's boat found the Island, that was imprinted on the hatch & caused the plane to crash on the Island, was never addressed.

You can talk about the religous and mythological values of LOST. I saw it as a combination action adventure series and complex character study. The finale had some of the most cheesy action scenes I have ever seen (did Locke/smokemonster really die that easily?) and the we still don't know the fates of most of the main characters other than Jack.

The island is the gateway to the next realm. Souls pass THROUGH the island to the next realm. Souls are not meant to be created on the island (conception/birth issues). The souls of people who die on the island are trapped.

Just as the island corks the opening to the next realm (heaven/hell/next life), the island has its own "cork" (the heart stone thing) for the trapped souls.

What are smoke monsters? Judges. They judge the souls before passing them onto the next realm. A person who goes into the "light" lets a smoke monster come into this world.

BAM – your theory about the whole thing essentially going on in Jack's mind before he dies is actually clever (because like a dream, years could actually be seconds which makes time inconsequential and a good out for the writers), but there are a lot of fundamental flaws with that concept.........not the least of which was, he wasn't wearing the same clothes when he died..........and although close, his wound was different than the one he got when Kate sewed him up in episode one. And we can talk for hours about the significance of his particular wounds.

I feel as if the show ended nicely. Like others i feel it is clear that the island stuff happened, especially since Christian specifically said it did. But the only really truly confusing this is if they were in a waiting area to pass on, why did they show the island at the beginning of the season sunk to the bottom of the ocean? I would like to know that. although i did like the finale, it was sad and i wish it was longer. they could have done more or at least show more of what happened after. also as far as the wreckage during the credits, that had nothing to do with the show narrative of the show. it wouldn't make sense especially since the plane was burnt out like it was after the survivors burned it and there were footprints through the site.

It was a satisfying ending to an amazing show. Yes, they left some details or character mysteries answered, like was Widmore actually trying to do good or bad this whole time and what was his motivation? Also, I agree that Nadia was Sayid's constant not Shannon. There were other things too, however I'm willing to forgive all that because in the end they brought the show back to it's core. Thank you for an amazing, tedious, frustrating, exciting, and emotional 6 years...

Make sideways universe real, not a cop-out purgatory. On the island, have Locke/Smokey kill everyone except Desmond, Jack, and Hurley. When Desmond uncorks the island, Desmond acts as a channel that allows all of the trapped souls on the island to pass through him and through Sideways Desmond and into Sideways characters.

Thus, have a real reunion at the concert as the characters suddenly "remember" their island experiences.

Once the portal is done, Desmond puts the cork back on, but collapses before getting out in time. Hence, Desmond turns into a smoke monster. A good smoke monster (no MIB baggage).

Jack kills Locke monster while the island is uncorked, but dies himself AFTER Desmond's portal is closed. Jack's soul is trapped on the island.

End the show with Island Hurley guarding the island with Desmond's help and Jack's guidance. Sideways universe is happily ever after.

After mulling it over a bit, I think the show ended about the only way it could have, although I still wish we'd gotten more explanations about some things. Darlton has said that Lost is like life: you don't get all the answers. True, but life isn't a scripted TV show. I can only hope the encyclopedia coming out this fall will elaborate on some of the more confounding questions. Like, why was the island underwater in the sideways world, if it was merely a waiting area for everyone and didn't really exist?

All in all, and after some time, I am very satisfied with the ending. But I do believe the producers left enough open ended items that the ending could be interpreted in two ways. The first is more likely and explains many more happenings on and off the island:

1) They DON’T die in the plane crash. They DO experience the island, time travel/DARMA, off island experiences (OC6) and going back to the island. I think Eloise needed the OC6 to go back to the island to ‘create’ the ‘alternate’ world where they can all meet up and she can live with her son. I think Eloise and Widmore are aware that the sideways/‘alternate universe’/Limbo/purgatory/whatever is just that, but they want to stay there to remain with their children. This is why she is so opposed to Desmond ‘waking’ them up, and why she played a role and tried to steer Desmond in various directions through out the show. Meanwhile, Jacob and MIB exist on the island. They represent good and evil forces, where Jacob must ensure the evil force doesn’t get off the island. Juliet detonating the atomic bomb, creates the alternate world where they all go when they die (This is what Eloise wanted). But when they go there they are unaware that they are dead, until they meet up with their ‘constant’, their ‘love’. I think Eloise and Widmore are each other’s constants and this is why they realize what’s going on. This ‘alternate world’ provides the ability for the characters to redeem themselves. Almost everyone is a better human being and makes better choices...Then true to his name Christian Shepherd, shepherds them and helps them let go and move on to the light.....Maybe back to the island to 'not live' but 'be', happily ever after....

This theory explains, Ancient Cultures...
Egyptian culture references, reincarnation...
Buddhism references, reincarnation but through redemption and shedding of karma, you can move on to nirvana....the light....

OR, and I know most disagree with this theory, but I think there is a case to be made for it,

2) They DO die in the initial plane crash. The island experiences ARE ‘real to them’, they are in Limbo (their spirits/alternate life on the island) and are redeeming themselves through their choices, love for one another, sacrifices, etc... There is no ‘real’ / ‘now’ as Christian Shepherd said, Jacob and MIB represent good and evil, and the ‘non-survivors’ need to make choices/free-will to move on. In the on island events, they make sacrifices for one another, and the “island” rewards them with afterlife. Again, Christian Shepperd shepherds them through. The camera panning on Jack’s eye opening at beginning of the series corresponds to the closing if his eye at the end, the island experiences are their journey, redemption, ability to love and sacrifice, in the ‘time’ of their deaths. Remember, ‘time’ is relative.

Some open questions I would love to have resolved,, and I don't mean polar bears or the darma initiative; i mean ...
(1) why wasn't Aaron suppose to be brought up by another?
(2) what was the consequence of him being brought up by Kate?
what was the light in the cave
(5) What about Miles communicating with the dead, or was that why he was on the island b/c they were dead?

I would love another season to tie it all together, not necessarily answer all question, but to tie all the loose ends.

The ending was a disappointment. I agree, the writers should have turned to the blogs for an original thought on ending the show. The finale makes watching the series on bluray or DVD next to impossible. Watching the show in reruns one can really see how the loose plotlines the writers never will address.

You guys do not understand what happened. They absolutely did not all die. The flash-sideways is a place that they create to 'let go' after they die, but there is no "now" in the flash-sideways, meaning that they have not all died yet. Jack was successful in saving the people, the people that left the island on the plane were alive. They died some point in the future. This was the point of the scene with Hurley and Ben when Hurley told him he was a great number 2.

Before blathering on about how it was a "cheap ending" please rewatch and actually listen to the dialog!

Erik hit it on the head. It's exactly what I've been saying since last night. MrAlex, too. If you're confused or you think they died on the plane or the island wasn't "real," etc. just go and watch the last 15 minutes of last night's finale. Christian was pretty clear about things.

1. They haven't been in purgatory the whole show; the purgatory began only in Season 6 as a way to get us all to think it was an alternate timeline, and not the future. The wreckage at the end was just to show that the Island had finally quieted down now that Smokey was gone and the only four people left on it were Rose, bernard, Hurley and Ben.

2. If Lindelof & Cruise had tried to tie up every loose plot point (fatal pregnancies etc.) the last hour would just have been the Micro Machines speed-talker reading from a prepared sheet. When you lack a this-is-how-the-show-will-end story arc from the very beginning of a series, you get awesomeness, like Jack becoming the main character, Hurley becoming central to the story, and Nikki/Paolo dying thirty seconds after being introduced. You can have sudden neat turns and compelling storylines simply because the field is open. But the downside, of course, is that you end up with less than all the answers. Things get messy, and stop completely adding up. Same situation with Battlestar Galactica. It's a tradeoff.

I never watched the show in 6 years, I watched the 1 hour re-cap and the final episode. As an outside observer, I thought they ended it very well. They were not in purgatory, but they all 'eventually' died as everyone does. They chose to meet in the after-life at the 'church' before moving on. They waited to enter the next realm until everyone had died so they could move on together. Now that's a cool ending.

It seems that most the people upset with the ending didn't understand it...the ones complaining that they were right about them all being dead really need to stop and take and chill out for a minute. They DID NOT all die from the initial plane crash on the island. That all really happened. The limbo realm they were "flashing" back and forth to was for their spirits to remember and accept its time for them to move on. Since time doesn't exist the same in the limbo world, they're able to all meet again regardless of when they died in the real world.

I loved everything but the last 10 minutes. I don't mind so much that Jack was dead at the end but there were so many unanswered questions. I expected a lot to be explained and I think if you asked a cast memeber, they probably wouldn't even know what happened. Jimmy Kimmel was obviously confused by the end too but he didn't really ask for any answered. I could have done without all the 'alternate endings' and had some real question and answers.

Why is everyone having a difficult time with this? Or making up their own endings? There is a lot left to interpretation, but not the ending.
EVERYTHING that happened on the island/off the island...seasons 1-6...truly happened! ...The flash sideways from this season is the place between their afterlife. They did not die in the original 815 crash. They did not die from the jughead explosion. Whenever they died, they died. They weren't all 'waiting' for others to die either. As Christian explained, there is no 'here'. There is no 'time'. It's just happening. Some could have died 5 years earlier, some 50 years later. That doesn't matter. It's where they all meet when they did die. Like Hurley and Ben who protected the island. They died much later, but are in the same 'time' as everyone in the afterlife.
We all assumed they were meeting their Constants to mesh the two realities. But they were actually meeting their Constants in order to realize and 'let go' and move on. If they were ready. Some were ready, others weren't. Penny was in the church also because Desmond was her Constant.

There are plenty of answers in all of Lost, it's just not all spelled out for you. I feel completely satisfied by the show and the ending.

The island is in place to keep evil or 'hell' from unleashing upon earth. Jacob brought candidates for thousands of years to the island to replace him. Since MIB couldn't kill them, he pitted them against each other...to kill themselves. Using the inherent 'evil' of man to destroy the chances of a candidate taking his place. So now the island survived..everyone dies when it is there time...and they move on. They find the happiest time in their lives as they were all 'lost' and troubled. Now they found love and joy and move on to the afterworld

What a perfect way to explain it! Some people just don't understand the nature of the show...it's not about answers...it's about relationships, the journey that the characters take, and the journey the audience takes with the characters through out the show.

I don't think Damon and Carlton took the easy way out. I am a loyal fan of theirs and can't wait to see what they do next

Don't you all get it? It was the sideways world which was purgetroy. Even though they all died at different times, they waited for eachother until they could go to heaven together. why do you think Kate said to jack in the car "iv'e missed you" she hasn't seen him because he died.

After watching with a whole crew of people and then hashing it out afterward, I was surprised by all the different views other groups that did the same came to.
Overall i definitely liked how they put the focus on community, faith, and some sense of personal redemption. But obviously no one view is going to be the answer here unless the writers give us some post-Lost counseling.
I assumed the point of showing the wreckage in the credits was to imply that they all died with the original crash. But that by no means implies that nothing they did on the island was real. Christian set us straight on that one.
Thoughts?

ok. so the finale could have been worse. it could have been better in that it would have been made clear if they were alive or dead. but they took the fun route and left us guessing. what about jack and the dog? jack lies wounded on the ground and the dog walks over to him- is jack alive there? how about the plane who's plane flew over jack? his plane? another and hes happy he stopped further accidents?
lots of questions are left unanswered but this way viewers can answer them for ourself
i didnt watch every episode every season but tuning in to the finale answered many of my questions

Wow, Don says exactly how I felt. After 6 years of faithfully following the finale just felt like a cop out, especially after assuring us that there was no purgatory s/l. And some stuff just didn't make sense. Hurley being left in charge, really? Nadia has always been portrayed as the love of Sayid's life but in the end it's Shannon? No Michael and Walt? There was never going to be THE perfect ending to make everyone happpy but I didn't expect to be this disappointed. But since they entertained me for years I'll let it go and move on.

Let it go? These guys are laughing at us all the way to the bank. We were lied to with "the answers are coming" BS we would hear each week. We were cheated and disrespected in a big way. I will never watch anything these two clowns write again and I hope that goes for a lot of viewers. They should not get away with this.

it was just more crap to leave you hanging. there all dead is no ending because that is the universal ending to all things.life and yes even the universe will end buy expanding and expanding until it is no more.like a busted balloon.watch my new series on u tube its called- the smoke monsters island.

No one is asking a very important question. The last time we saw Aaron, he was about 5. Why was he a baby at the church? The only thing I could think of was that the writers had no clue as how to show him so people would know who he was other than as a baby. I think they should have just left him out.

I also did not see Ana Lucia, I guess she was not ready to "cross over". Unless I missed her.

Also why did Kate change clothes, she had a dress on outside and something else inside the church, bad editing I guess.

There is one problem with the ending. Why didnt Jack turn into a smoke monster. He should have become evil like the black shirted brother did. The brothers' mother warned Jacob that no one could ever go down there. She something like it is worse than death. Remember, he wasnt evil before he got washed into the cave. He just wanted to leave the island....Jack even reappeared the same way lying on the rocks like the black shirt brother....I could maybe understand that Desmond didnt turn evil because he had special power against the radiation but Jack didnt.

Ok, it was a little deus ex machina, but the whole series has been full of mystery and unanswered questions. The core of the series, the thing that mattered, were the characters and their relationships with one another. Their individual searches for redemption and truth, each of them battling their own demons...that is what made Lost a fantastic show.
I thought the finale was perfect....in the "waiting room" of the sideways universe they were all able to finally find the love none of them ever really felt they deserved....on the island, in reality, they were all able to be the heroes none of them ever thought they could be.
It was brilliant and touching and for those of you still craving the answer to life, the universe and everything........
The answer is 42.....so long and thanks for all the fish. 😉

I thought it was done tastefully, with the real purgatory being the sideways universe. I did feel a little cheated in that the Man in Black was never named – that was a cheap bit of melodrama. It was also a little odd that Michael, Walt, and most importantly Vincent were not in the church.

You should feel VERY cheated. Take the time to count all the unexplained mysteries and unanswered questions that have left us unsatisfied. There are more than you might realize. A lot of them are an integral part of the story. It remains an incomplete story.

Bam, you said that you "don't think the island stuff happened." Of course anything is open to interpretation but my God, what else to the writers have to do to make it clear that it DID happen? From Hurley telling Ben what a great number 2 he had been (indicating that their lives continued long after Jack died) and Jack's father telling him flat out that the island was real. I don't see where there's any question. While I'm at it, the smoke monster is bad. Although I guess that's open to interpretation too......

It's almost as if these people watched a different show than I did. LOST has always been about faith, friendship and redemption. The finale was beautifully scripted and acted in every way. While the scientific aspects of the island were fascinating, ultimately that stuff didn't matter. In the end it came down to who they were as people. You don't have to be religious to appreciate the beautiful ideal of getting to see all the people you loved after you die. Wow. I am still getting chill bumps a day later. Better than I possibly even imagined.

Kevin, You nailed it, man. The whole six years took place in the time it takes for the spark of life to dull in a dying man's eyes. I can imagine dozens of other, far less suitable endings but this one captured what I am sure was the original ideal in the minds of it's producers and writers. Brilliant!!!

Sorry to disagree but the science and mystery aspect of the show mattered greatly. If you removed all of that the show would never have lasted more than one season. It would have been a soap opera version of "Castaway". It was the whole package of faith and science that made it last six years. The intrigue from the mystery is what really brought the viewers coming back for more, all starting from the pilot show with Charlie's comment of "guys, where are we?" after they all became aware of the smoke monsters presence on the island with the his sounds coming from the trees being thrown around near the beach.

My thoughts: Everyone on the island, everyone, was on the plane. They all died...except for Jack. What we saw was his life "flash before his eyes" and we also saw the thoughts of a dying man. I don't think the island stuff happened. I don't think the alternate timeline happened. It was Jack's journey to the light. Plain and simple. The ending was genius – people will be debating the how's, why's and where for years.

My initial reaction as the credits rolled was that one of the most intelligently written tapestries on TV had been dumbed down to a lame mysterious golden light and a crudely crafted end-run around the oft-denied assumption that the passengers were all dead.

How could such a talented writing team with millions of loyal fans and followers have fallen into such a trap?

Now that I've had a few hours to digest and reconsider. I do see some of the merits of what they did... but it was still a cheap quick way to get around answering anything.... Very un-Lost like and disappointing.

I actually feel quite cheated over 6 seasons of intense build-up. I'm actually glad ABC canceled FlashForward now so it ends before the writers decide they don't know how to end it.

what trap? Trust me. I was very shocked by the ending as well and didn't know what to think. But after a couple days of thought I've realized how meaningful and perfect the ending was. It grew on me and I hope it can grow on you. It brought closure to the characters and that was always the most important part of the lost, the characters. It started out as purely plot but moved to a much deeper story of the character's redemption and change and relationships. And about not explaining everything, how else are supposed to explain the island, its unexplainable. I spent hours trying to come up with some alternate ending and couldn't do it. I couldn't come up with some reasonable explanation for the island because there is none. It's mystery is it's charm. The characters got what they needed, their peace, and that's enough for me. Explaining the island in some scientific way would've taken several more episodes and would have distracted from the importance of the characters.

Hey Don, I felt the same. People try to sway negative opinion and I think it's weird because I'm really a fan, but I had to go with my gut feeling. The finale didn't sit well with me. Regardless of the theme/character base explanations, I just wished it could have been better and I was left disappointed.

I agree with Don also. The writers used the sideways ending as a tactic to distract viewers from their failure to creatively complete the mystery aspect of the show. It was a red herring, sugar coated and wrought with emotional scenes to play down the Saturday morning cartoon like ending with Jack plugging the hole with the carrot shaped stone. And it worked to some extent because of all the comments I see such as "it was so beautiful, I cried and cried". What a croc. We were conned by two snake oil salesmen who were not talented and skillful enough to creatively weave all the mysteries and aspects of the Island story together in an intelligent and satisfying way. They are laughing all the way to the bank at our expense. Shameful and disrespectful to say the least.

Yes, I agree. That scene with Jack dying in the same spot where we he was introduced, with Vincent beside him, the closing of the eye, was quite poetic and moving. Sadly, I think the ending could have worked, but was premature. There were far far too many loose ends that needed to be (and should have been) tied up in some way. It was almost as if the writers were suddenly told "last season guys and gals, wrap it up". So sad.

This ended as an incomplete story. At least explain some of the obvious and profound mysteries. Who built the sky scrapper size statue, why was it built and how on a remote island with no resources? The same question about the temple and the chamber below for the monster. What power did the ash hold over the monster that he could not cross it? What powers did the crazy mother have that she could impose the "rules" that carried beyond her death? How did she kill all if MIB's people and fill in the well alone? There are so many many questions but only a few were explained. Remember each promo began with " the answers are coming". This was a mystery driven show and to end it as they did would be like reading a 1000 page mystery novel and finding out at the final chapter several key pages were ripped out of the book. After six years of faithful watching we expected and deserved a payoff but all we got was a ripoff.